American Heaven - Hardcover

Chernoff, Maxine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566890411 ISBN 13: 9781566890410

Publisher: Coffee House Press, 1996

Synopsis

Maxine Chernoff's style is clear, lyric and moving--very human.--Sara Paretsky

About this title

Review:

When mathematician Irena Bozinska tires of life in post-Communist Poland, she leaves for America, where she finds work as the paid companion of Harrison Waters, an elderly black pianist. Her best friend is Elizabeth O'Conner, nurse and bed companion to Jack Kaufman, a gangster and real estate mogul who lives next door. Bozinska may be the center of the story, but Kaufman is its heart. In Kaufman, Chernoff (whose earlier works include Bop, Signs of Devotion and Plain Grief) has created a character who, in his own words, is "like a force of nature when it comes to knowing what I want."

From the Back Cover:

Irena Bozinska, beset by difficulties with love, language, and change, is a mathematician who has recently emigrated from Poland to America. She works as an attendant for an aging jazz musician who longs for one last moment of musical glory in spite of his arthritic fingers. Jack Kaufman, cared for by a mysteriously sad young woman, is a Chicago gangster nearing the end of a colorful, violent life. Joined together by the simple circumstance of sharing the same apartment building, these four lonely people begin to form surprising, life-changing bonds with one another.

About this edition

• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1566890411
• ISBN 13: 9781566890410
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256