Francine Prose

This tale of a family in Little Italy is “a minor miracle . . . documenting the madness and the grace of God in everyday life” (Newsweek).
 
On a 1950s September night so hot that the devout Catholics of Little Italy wonder if New York City has slipped into hell, the butcher Joseph Santangelo invites his friends to play pinochle. At the end of a long, sweaty, boozy evening, his friend...

Before there were workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says author and teacher Prose. Prose invites you on a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the very best writers and discovers why their work has endured. She takes pleasure in the magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is moved...

"A richly imagined and stunningly inventive story of love, art, and betrayal in Paris of the 20's, 30's, and 40's"-- Paris in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing...

Francine Prose argues that the diary of Anne Frank is as much a deliberate work of art as it is an historical record, noting its literary merits and thoroughly investigating the diary's unique afterlife as one of the world's most read, and banned, books.

Young Simone flees the chaotic violence of Haiti only to land in a world no less brutal or bizarre--the world of upstate New York's Porter family. Here, dead sheep swing from trees, light bulbs are ceremoniously buried, a fur-clad mother carves terrifying goddesses from pumice, and learning to lie is the principle rite of passage into adulthood.

Though mocked by the rest of the villagers, poor Schmuel the shoemaker turns out to be a very special person.

When hungry rhinos rampage through the village eating all the sweet potatoes, Roy bravely goes and teaches them new ways to live.

"This publication celebrates the first birthday as a pivotal milestone in life's journey and the hope and promise of what is to come"--Foreword.