City Of God

Description

CITY OF GOD begins in mystery: the large brass cross behind the altar of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in lower Manhattan has disappeared... and even more mysteriously reappeared on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and young rabbinical couple who lead the synagogue set about attempting to learn who the vandals are who have committed this strange double act of desecration and to what purpose, but their joint clerical investigation only deepens the mystery. A writer alerted to the story by a newspaper article befriends the priest and the rabbis and find that their struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. In fact, as the narrative advances and the story broadens, more and more people are implicated in what may be the elusive prophecy of a new American culture. Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and the profane, the book opens into a multi-voiced narrative that incorporates the monumental historical events and predominating ideas of our age.

E L Doctorow's work is published in thirty languages. Among his honours are the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (twice), the PEN/Faulkner Award and the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal. He lives and works in New York.

'A constant pleasure and an indication of the resources humankind can still pitch against the evidence for despair' INDEPENDENT 'Alchemical writing - a marriage of ideas to words in ways that carry on a debate between what is and what might be.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Doctorow's versatility, his verbal power and dexterity and range and sharpness of observation, his intelligence and clarity and yes, sometimes poetry, are impressive' SPECTATOR 'E L Doctorow is an astonishing novelist - astonishing not only in the virtuosity with which he deploys his mimetic skills, but also in the fact that it is impossible to predict even roughly the shape, scope and tone of one of his novels from its predecessors' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 'Doctorow is a master of atmosphere ... He knows the art of storytelling inside and out' NEWSWEEK