'A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe

Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York.
Written in the last year of Roth's life, this is the impassioned story of a young man's love affair with literature, and with his teacher. As Ira Stigman turns from his incestuous childhood affairs, he finds himself competing with his best friend for the attention of their literature professor. FROM BONDAGE is the the moving culmination of a great writer's life.

'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair

'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times

'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek

'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist

'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal

'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express

'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review

Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes
1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park
2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson
3) From Bondage
4) Requiem for Harlem.

The internationally-acclaimed, defintive account of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York.

About the Author
In 1994 Henry Roth broke his sixty-year literary silence following his classic novel CALL IT SLEEP, with the publication of volume one of MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM, called A STAR SHINES OVER MT. MORRIS PARK. This four-volume series was hailed as 'unsurpassable' in the annals of twentieth-century American literature. Henry Roth died aged 89 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in October 1995.

Reviews
A genuine publishing event ... unbeatable in [its] drama, tension and feeling * Literary Review *
The Ur-novel at the heart of American literature - Mercy of a Rude Stream is a towering achievement -- Junot Diaz
Henry Roth has only two peers in American-English Jewish fiction, Nathanael West and Philip Roth -- Harold Bloom
The literary comeback of the century * Vanity Fair *
A masterpiece ... It is not remotely like anything else in American literature.... It is this pitiless examination of a writer grappling with his demons, at the highest reaches of his intellectual capacity, that gives Mercy of a Rude Stream its ferocious passion.... It is the exhilaration felt by a man who has cast off six decades of self-repression and finally feels himself free * The New York Review of Books *
Roth creates his own Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man--a marvelously poetic chronicle * Chicago Sun-Times *
Mr. Roth's innovative use of language is both beautiful and highly realistic ... Although there is no style called Rothian, there should be * New York Times Book Review *
This novel is as unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates * Sunday Times *



Book Information
ISBN 9780753800041
Author Henry Roth
Format Paperback
Page Count 416
Imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publisher Orion Publishing Co
Weight(grams) 340g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 167mm * 29mm