Solomon Gursky Was Here - Softcover

Richler, Mordecai

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140277277 ISBN 13: 9780140277272

Publisher: Penguin Canada, 1998

Synopsis

Berger, son of the failed poet L.B. Berger, is in the grips of an obsession. The Gursky family with its colourful bootlegging history, its bizarre connections with the North and the Inuit, and its wildly eccentric relations, both fascinates and infuriates him. His quest to unravel their story leads to the enigmatic Ephraim Gursky: document forger in Victorian England, sole survivor of the ill-fated Franklin expedition and charasmatic religious leader of the Arctic. Of Ephraim's three grandsons, Bernard has fought, wheeled and cheated his way to the head of a liquor empire. His brother Morrie has reluctantly followed along. But how does Ephraim's protege, Solomon, fit in? Elusive, mysterious and powerful, Solomon Gursky hovers in the background, always out of Moses' grasp, but present-like an omen.

About this title

About the Author

Mordecai Richler (1931-2001) wrote ten novels; numerous screenplays, essays, children's books; and several works of non-fiction. He gained international acclaim with The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which was later made into a movie. During his career, he was the recipient of dozens of literary awards, including two Governor General's Awards, The Giller Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Mordecai Richler was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2001.

From Library Journal

After a ten-year hiatus, Richler, one of Canada's premier novelists, returns with a ribald reworking of Canadian history that chronicles the fortunes of the mythical Gursky family. (His last novel was Joshua Then and Now, LJ 5/15/80.) From patriarch Ephraim, a con man who arrived with a doomed British Arctic exploration team, through his bootlegger grandsons Bernard, Solomon, and Morrie, who parlayed prohibition into a distillery fortune, the Gurskys' penchant for grand and petty larceny is played off against upper-crust Canadian and English society, torn between greed and anti-Semitism. Moses Berger, Solomon's appropriately alcoholic biographer, assembles the pieces of Gursky history in a hilarious narrative that jumps back and forth from Victorian England to modern Montreal and all points in between. With a cast of outlandishly funny characters, Richler skewers the pretensions of the rich, the religious, and the avaricious in his best novel yet. Essential. BOMC alternate; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/89.
- Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Canada
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0140277277
• ISBN 13: 9780140277272
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 576