''The Bear Comes Home'' is a novel written by American writer Rafi Zabor. It won the 1998

PEN/Faulkner Award The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living Americans, Green Card holders or permanent residents. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of ...

for fiction, and was selected as an alternate for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

Details

The novel tells the story of an

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgians, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭ ( ...

-playing

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...

, his involvement in the

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

subculture, and his pursuit of love, truth and perfection. ''

Musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

'' published the first chapters of ''The Bear Comes Home'', in serialized form, beginning in 1979. Zabor resumed work on the remainder of the book after a fourteen-year hiatus, and

W. W. Norton W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly '' The Norton ...

published the novel in 1997.

References

External links

*
The Bear Comes Home
' webpage at W. W. Norton & Company 1997 American novels Novels first published in serial form Works originally published in American magazines Works originally published in music magazines Novels about bears Novels about music W. W. Norton & Company books PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction–winning works 1997 debut novels {{1990s-novel-stub