Benjamin Taylor is the author of the novel Tales Out of School, which won the 1996 Harold Ribalow Prize and is available in paperback from Zoland Books, an imprint of Steerforth Press. He is editor of The Letters of Saul Bellow, scheduled for publication in 2010. His travel memoir, Naples Declared, will be published in 2011. He lives in New York City.
Winner, 2nd Place, 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction
Finalist, 2009 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction "It's hard not
to think of Philip Roth while reading Benjamin Taylor's funny,
literate The Book of Getting Even. It's not just the impeccable
portrait of Jewish-American life in 1970s America, or the comedy of
sexual frustrations. It's the sense that this book could mark the
start of a great career... I found a kind of reverence in response
to Taylor's accomplished novel." -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer "The
voice of the outsider looking in has served many great novels well
-- among them, notably, The Great Gatsby and Brideshead Revisited.
Benjamin Taylor's The Book of Getting Even takes its place
alongside its illustrious forebears; it is an intelligent,
emotionally resonant novel whose first-person narrative is unafraid
to shine a clear, unblinking light onto the tricky themes of
sexuality, American class systems, Jewishness, and familial bonds.
The Book is Getting Even is beautiful in its elegance and
fearlessness, and is almost impossible to put down, from compelling
beginning to poignantly surprising end." -- Kate Christensen,
winner of the PEN/Faulkner prize for The Great Man "The Book of
Getting Even is a humorous and moving story of a love affair
between a young man and an entire family. Benjamin Taylor's prose
is beautiful and dense, but never impedes the plot or mitigates the
liveliness of the characters. The novel is a mere 176 pages, but
its impact is emotionally monumental." -- Mark Jude Poirier,
novelist and screenwriter of Smart People "At 166 pages, The Book
of Getting Even is a mortar shot of a novel -- the trajectory is
steep, the narrative moves at tremendous velocity and the book ends
with a bang. Yet it also is a bittersweet and redemptive love
story, richly decorated and recounted with the deepest insight and
compassion for the workings of the human heart. . . . At the end,
we are sadder but wiser, and yet somehow comforted too -- signs
that we are in the hands of a gifted storyteller." -- Los Angeles
Times (A Best Book of the Year) "The Book of Getting Even is
elegant and beautifully evoked... The time and place are captured
with aching perfection. [Taylor's] considerable gifts as a writer
make it worthwhile."
-- The Seattle Times Gabriel Geismar, the embattled protagonist of
Taylor's excellent second novel ... has "a furious craving for
other, nobler origins." In college, he meets Marghie and Danny
Hundert, whose famous physicist father is one of his heroes, and
adopts the family as his own. The book explores the tortured and
often misguided process by which children attempt to define
themselves in relation to their parents (one iteration of the
"getting even" of the title), a process from which Danny and
Marghie, as Gabriel slowly discovers, are not exempt. Taylor
captures their quests for identity in pitch-perfect dialogue and
lengthy meditative passages; his elegant plotting feels at once
deliberate and improvised.
-- The New Yorker "War and peace, the fracturing of generations,
the sexual revolution and its casualties -- with irony and pathos
this beautifully written novel treats the defining themes of an
era, filtered through the restless, eccentric intelligence of a
striking cast of characters." -- The Boston Globe "A beautifully
written and keenly intelligent novel, ... in turn humorous, almost
unbearably moving, and comforting." -- Booklist (starred review)
"Reading The Book of Getting Even is like first encountering Franny
and Zooey or Brideshead Revisited. I never expected to feel quite
that way about a book again, and this one even disturbed my dreams
two nights running, which doesn't happen unless one is in a very
heady realm indeed. What a tour de force, and what a pleasure.
Benjamin Taylor is a literary magician." -- Beth Gutcheon "What a
wonderfully unusual and refreshing novel! From the very first page
of The Book of Getting Even, you know you're in the hands of a
virtuoso of words and an energetic storyteller. Benjamin Taylor's
hero, an astronomer-to-be, and his chosen family are flung about
mercilessly by history, and their surprising destinies are played
out against nothing less than the physical universe itself -- from
the farthest stars to the creepy things underfoot. This book is a
splendid gift for the mind as well as the heart." -- Lynn Sharon
Schwartz "The Book of Getting Even is beautiful and beguiling. I
especially admire Benjamin Taylor's ability to pack so much complex
life into such an elegant package. It seems almost miraculous." --
Peter Cameron "This elegiac novel features the long, tragic
friendship of three young people coming of age in the 1970s. They
meet as undergraduates at Swarthmore and begin their adult lives
full of promise. By the end of the novel, that promise has given
way to sadness, regret, and defeat, mainly because of bad choices.
All three protagonists are skillfully rendered. Daniel and Marghie
are fraternal twins, children of a Nobel prize-winning physicist,
while Gabriel is the son of a rabbi from New Orleans. [ . . .] Much
here is beautifully drawn: Gabriel's failed or unrealized romantic
relationships prove especially poignant. These young people also
lose their parents, and Taylor handles these passages with
eloquence and pathos. This is a novel about friendship, loneliness,
and the hazards adults encounter as they make their way in the
world." -- Library Journal "In this delightful, character-driven
coming-of-age novel, Gabriel Geismar grows up in mid-20th-century
New Orleans as the son of a rabbi, who is out of sync with his
father's values. . . . Benjamin Taylor turns in a smart, humane
look at what Gabriel calls the era's 'intergenerational rancor.'"
-- Publishers Weekly "An electric, arresting piece of writing,
every bit on par with -- and every bit as rich as -- its brilliant
title." -- Stacy Schiff "The Book of Getting Even is a deeply
satisfying novel, elegant and intellectually complex. I could read
Benjamin Taylor forever." -- Ann Patchett "The Book of Getting Even
is among the most original novels I have read in recent years. The
story Taylor tells is a romance of brains -- brains working well,
then tragically giving out. The book is exuberant and charming and
heartbroken by turns; indeed, the jaggedness of the ride is one of
the things I liked best, along with Taylor's proceeding by ironies.
Add to that lyricism, an ear for dialogue, a strong feel for place,
and a highly developed dramatic sense and you begin to have an idea
of this novelist's exceptional gift." -- Philip Roth "Finding one's
true home at the heart of another family is the theme of this
eloquent, highly intelligent novel, a kind of love story not often
seen, rendered in beautiful sentences flecked with humor and pain,
the front-row report of a young man's great good luck." -- Amy
Hempel
"Benjamin Taylor's new novel, The Book of Getting Even, is literary
fiction of the first water and a fitting successor to the evocative
bildungsroman Tales Out of School. Here, Taylor looks with gimlet
eye at family life -- the vexed relations of fathers and sons and
sisters and brothers -- yet his vision is wide and deep; this is a
book about literature and astrophysics, politics and persons,
anxiety and belief, entomology and our place in the universe.
Touching, tender, searing, exhilarating, it is written with
unpretentious wisdom." -- Brenda Wineapple "Benjamin Taylor is a
superb novelist. His book is marvelous in its originality, depth,
sensitivity and power." -- Romulus Linney
Winner, 2nd Place, 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction
Finalist, 2009 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction "It's hard
not to think of Philip Roth while reading Benjamin Taylor's funny,
literate The Book of Getting Even. It's not just the
impeccable portrait of Jewish-American life in 1970s America, or
the comedy of sexual frustrations. It's the sense that this book
could mark the start of a great career... I found a kind of
reverence in response to Taylor's accomplished novel." -- The
Cleveland Plain Dealer "The voice of the outsider looking in has
served many great novels well -- among them, notably, The Great
Gatsby and Brideshead Revisited. Benjamin Taylor's
The Book of Getting Even takes its place alongside its
illustrious forebears; it is an intelligent, emotionally resonant
novel whose first-person narrative is unafraid to shine a clear,
unblinking light onto the tricky themes of sexuality, American
class systems, Jewishness, and familial bonds. The Book is
Getting Even is beautiful in its elegance and fearlessness, and
is almost impossible to put down, from compelling beginning to
poignantly surprising end." -- Kate Christensen, winner of the
PEN/Faulkner prize for The Great Man "The Book of Getting
Even is a humorous and moving story of a love affair between a
young man and an entire family. Benjamin Taylor's prose is
beautiful and dense, but never impedes the plot or mitigates the
liveliness of the characters. The novel is a mere 176 pages, but
its impact is emotionally monumental." -- Mark Jude Poirier,
novelist and screenwriter of Smart People "At 166 pages, The
Book of Getting Even is a mortar shot of a novel -- the
trajectory is steep, the narrative moves at tremendous velocity and
the book ends with a bang. Yet it also is a bittersweet and
redemptive love story, richly decorated and recounted with the
deepest insight and compassion for the workings of the human heart.
. . . At the end, we are sadder but wiser, and yet somehow
comforted too -- signs that we are in the hands of a gifted
storyteller." -- Los Angeles Times (A Best Book of the Year)
"The Book of Getting Even is elegant and beautifully
evoked... The time and place are captured with aching perfection.
[Taylor's] considerable gifts as a writer make it worthwhile."
-- The Seattle Times Gabriel Geismar, the embattled protagonist of
Taylor's excellent second novel ... has "a furious craving for
other, nobler origins." In college, he meets Marghie and Danny
Hundert, whose famous physicist father is one of his heroes, and
adopts the family as his own. The book explores the tortured and
often misguided process by which children attempt to define
themselves in relation to their parents (one iteration of the
"getting even" of the title), a process from which Danny and
Marghie, as Gabriel slowly discovers, are not exempt. Taylor
captures their quests for identity in pitch-perfect dialogue and
lengthy meditative passages; his elegant plotting feels at once
deliberate and improvised.
-- The New Yorker "War and peace, the fracturing of generations,
the sexual revolution and its casualties -- with irony and pathos
this beautifully written novel treats the defining themes of an
era, filtered through the restless, eccentric intelligence of a
striking cast of characters." -- The Boston Globe "A beautifully
written and keenly intelligent novel, ... in turn humorous, almost
unbearably moving, and comforting." -- Booklist (starred review)
"Reading The Book of Getting Even is like first encountering Franny
and Zooey or Brideshead Revisited. I never expected to feel quite
that way about a book again, and this one even disturbed my dreams
two nights running, which doesn't happen unless one is in a very
heady realm indeed. What a tour de force, and what a pleasure.
Benjamin Taylor is a literary magician." -- Beth Gutcheon
"What a wonderfully unusual and refreshing novel! From the very
first page of The Book of Getting Even, you know you're in the
hands of a virtuoso of words and an energetic storyteller. Benjamin
Taylor's hero, an astronomer-to-be, and his chosen family are flung
about mercilessly by history, and their surprising destinies are
played out against nothing less than the physical universe itself
-- from the farthest stars to the creepy things underfoot. This
book is a splendid gift for the mind as well as the heart." --
Lynn Sharon Schwartz "The Book of Getting Even is
beautiful and beguiling. I especially admire Benjamin Taylor's
ability to pack so much complex life into such an elegant package.
It seems almost miraculous." -- Peter Cameron "This elegiac
novel features the long, tragic friendship of three young people
coming of age in the 1970s. They meet as undergraduates at
Swarthmore and begin their adult lives full of promise. By the end
of the novel, that promise has given way to sadness, regret, and
defeat, mainly because of bad choices. All three protagonists are
skillfully rendered. Daniel and Marghie are fraternal twins,
children of a Nobel prize-winning physicist, while Gabriel is the
son of a rabbi from New Orleans. [ . . .] Much here is beautifully
drawn: Gabriel's failed or unrealized romantic relationships prove
especially poignant. These young people also lose their parents,
and Taylor handles these passages with eloquence and pathos. This
is a novel about friendship, loneliness, and the hazards adults
encounter as they make their way in the world." -- Library Journal
"In this delightful, character-driven coming-of-age novel, Gabriel
Geismar grows up in mid-20th-century New Orleans as the son of a
rabbi, who is out of sync with his father's values. . . . Benjamin
Taylor turns in a smart, humane look at what Gabriel calls the
era's 'intergenerational rancor.'" -- Publishers Weekly "An
electric, arresting piece of writing, every bit on par with -- and
every bit as rich as -- its brilliant title." -- Stacy
Schiff "The Book of Getting Even is a deeply satisfying
novel, elegant and intellectually complex. I could read Benjamin
Taylor forever." -- Ann Patchett "The Book of Getting
Even is among the most original novels I have read in recent
years. The story Taylor tells is a romance of brains -- brains
working well, then tragically giving out. The book is exuberant and
charming and heartbroken by turns; indeed, the jaggedness of the
ride is one of the things I liked best, along with Taylor's
proceeding by ironies. Add to that lyricism, an ear for dialogue, a
strong feel for place, and a highly developed dramatic sense and
you begin to have an idea of this novelist's exceptional gift." --
Philip Roth "Finding one's true home at the heart of another
family is the theme of this eloquent, highly intelligent novel, a
kind of love story not often seen, rendered in beautiful sentences
flecked with humor and pain, the front-row report of a young man's
great good luck." -- Amy Hempel
"Benjamin Taylor's new novel, The Book of Getting Even, is
literary fiction of the first water and a fitting successor to the
evocative bildungsroman Tales Out of School. Here, Taylor looks
with gimlet eye at family life -- the vexed relations of fathers
and sons and sisters and brothers -- yet his vision is wide and
deep; this is a book about literature and astrophysics, politics
and persons, anxiety and belief, entomology and our place in the
universe. Touching, tender, searing, exhilarating, it is written
with unpretentious wisdom." -- Brenda Wineapple "Benjamin
Taylor is a superb novelist. His book is marvelous in its
originality, depth, sensitivity and power." -- Romulus
Linney
This elegiac novel features the long, tragic friendship of three young people coming of age in the 1970s. They meet as undergraduates at Swarthmore and begin their adult lives full of promise. By the end of the novel, that promise has given way to sadness, regret, and defeat, mainly because of bad choices. All three protagonists are skillfully rendered. Daniel and Marghie are fraternal twins, children of a Nobel prize-winning physicist, while Gabriel is the son of a rabbi from New Orleans. Although parts of the novel would have benefited from further development, much here is beautifully drawn: Gabriel's failed or unrealized romantic relationships prove especially poignant. These young people also lose their parents, and Taylor handles these passages with eloquence and pathos. This is a novel about friendship, loneliness, and the hazards adults encounter as they make their way in the world. Although not without its flaws, it nonetheless has much to offer. Recommended for libraries with large fiction collections.-Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
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