The Prince of West End Avenue is the first novel by
Alan Isler
Alan Isler (September 12, 1934 – March 29, 2010) was an American novelist and professor. He left his native England for the United States at age 18, served in the US Army from 1954 to 1956, received a doctorate in English Literature from Columbi ...
, published in 1994. The novel is a first-person narration by Otto Korner (formerly Körner) and intertwines a comedy about staging
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
in a Jewish retirement home, the Emma Lazarus, with flashbacks concerning the early life of the protagonist, his two marriages, the creation of
Dada, and the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. It won the
National Jewish Book Award and the
JQ Wingate Prize and was also a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996.
Described by
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
as 'a paradoxical tale of how to make peace with an unbearable past and the sin of pride', the novel only reveals the tragic events haunting the narrator just before the end, lending perspective to the comic concerns of the staging of ''Hamlet''.
Characters
*Tuvye Bialkin: occupant of a penthouse room in the Emma Lazarus, who does not appear in the book;
*Freddy Blum: priapic resident of the Emma Lazarus;
*Dr Ralph Comyns: doctor at the Emma Lazarus;
*Magda Damrosch: Hungarian woman Körner meets on the train to Zurich in 1915 and pursues unsuccessfully; she later dies in Auschwitz;
*Mandy Dattner: new physical therapist at the Emma Lazarus who reminds Korner of Magda Damrosch; lover of Dr Comyns;
*Tosca Dawidowicz: resident at the Emma Lazarus;
*Morris (also 'Meurice') Gitlitz: first husband of Alice Krebs;
*Bruce Goldstein: proprietor of Goldstein's Dairy Restaurant on Broadway'
*Lorrie Grabscheidt: resident at the Emma Lazarus;
*Selma Gross: 'portress' at the Emma Lazarus; married to Bernie, a C.P.A who does not appear in the book;
*Benno Hamburger: friend of Korner and co-resident at the Emma Lazarus;
*Kenneth (né Kurt) Himmelfarb: brother-in-law of Otto Korner; married to Lola;
*Richard Huelsenbeck: part of the gang of Dada Nihilist in Zurich in the 1910s;
*Otto Korner (né Körner): former poet, retired librarian, narrator;
*Hugo Körner: son of Otto and Meta;
*Alice Krebs: aka 'The Contessa', Otto Korner's second wife;
*Gerhardt Kunstler: late addition to the residents at the Emma Lazarus; son of a man who worked for Körner's father in Berlin;
*Nahum Litschitz: resident at the Emma Lazarus; in favour of 'fart for fart's sake';
[}]
*Meta Infeld: Otto Körner's first wife;
*Hannah (also 'Hermione') Perlmutter: resident at the Emma Lazarus; lover of Benno Hamburger;
*Poliakov: aka The Red Dwarf; resident at the Emma Lazarus;
*Dr Hugo Weisskopf: director of the Emma Lazarus, also called the Kommandant and Dr Scheisskopf;
*Salo Wittkower: resident at the Emma Lazarus;
In addition, there are small parts played by
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
,
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
, and
Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...
.
References
External links
The podcast Backlisted discusses this title in episode no.94. Backlisted.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prince Of West End Avenue
1994 American novels
American comedy novels