City Of God (Paperback, New Ed)

Over his ten novels, Doctorow has become the great chronicler of modern America, and above all of his own New York City, past and present. He has told the story in evocative, experimental novels like Welcome to Hard Times, World's Fair and The Book of Daniel, working on the borders of fact and fiction: fiction about non-fiction, as he calls it. City of God is chiefly a contemporary story, set in the Manhattan of the millennium. Science and new theories of the cosmos have changed the universe; religion is adrift. When the cross from a Christian church is stolen and appears on the roof of a reformist synagogue, guilty confusions of faith in a time of doubt, shameful religious memories, survivor anxieties and multicultural attitudes are summoned. The story takes us back in time to a crucial diary about the Lithuanian ghetto and the events of the Holocaust and a ghetto archive. Doctorow considers where religion comes from, and how it changes in the history that so concerns him. Autobiographically present in his own story, he tells us many stories, in a variety of forms, including poetry. This is not an easy book, and the theme is directly religious. But it is a distinguished work from an important American writer, exploring what has become of religious sense on an exploding planet in a crisis time. (Kirkus UK)

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.

General

Imprint:	Abacus
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	February 2001
Authors:	E. L Doctorow
Dimensions:	198 x 127 x 21mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	308
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-349-11352-4
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-349-11352-1
Barcode:	9780349113524

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