Mercy of a Rude Stream: A Star Shines over Mt. Morris Park

Mercy of a Rude Stream marks the astonishing return of Henry Roth, sixty years after the publication of his classic novel Call it Sleep. A book of time, memory, and desire, this new novel is set in the New York of World War I: a colorful vibrant, carelessly brutal city where an immigrant boy, Ira Stigmanm is coming of age. Like Joyce's Stephen Dedalus, Ira begins to discover the genius and the burden of his imagination, as he takes his first tentative steps toward adulthood.

A contempoary of the great modernist writers, Roth is being rediscovered by a new generation of readers.

Henry Roth died on October 13, 1995. His extraordinary literary legacy includes the classic Call It Sleep and six volumes of Mercy of a Rude Stream, all completed before his death. A Diving Rock on the Hudson is the second volume in this series and follows A Star Shines over Mr. Morris Park, also published by Picador.

While still alive, Roth recieved two honorary doctorates, one from the University of New Mexico and one from the Hebrew Theological Institute in Cincinnati. Posthumously, he was honored by Hadassah Magazine with a special Harold U. Ribalow Prize for Distinguished Literary Achievement. He was also given a special honor by the Museum of the City of New York.