1930s
A01=Jami Attenberg
Author_Jami Attenberg
bowery
Category=FBA
down and out
electro swing
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
flappers
Francesca Segal
Howard Jacobson
Jami Attenberg
Jennifer Egan
Lorrie Moore
Mazie Phillips
Naomi Alderman
new york
prohibition
Queen of the Bowery
roaring 20s
roaring twenties
Saint Mazie
the depression
the great depression
the thirties
The Venice
Product details
- ISBN 9781846689925
- Weight: 275g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 18 Feb 2016
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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From the bestselling author of The Middlesteins comes comes this unique novel about a forgotten heroine of the 1930s.
Meet Mazie Phillips: big-hearted and feisty, she runs The Venice, the famed movie theatre in the rundown Bowery district of New York City. She spends her days taking tickets, chatting with drunks and eccentrics, and chasing out the troublemakers. After closing up, the nights are her own, and she fills them with romance and booze aplenty-even during Prohibition.
When the Great Depression hits, and homelessness soars, Mazie opens The Venice to those in need, giving them shelter and dimes for food and booze, and earning the nickname 'Saint Mazie'. Inspired by Joseph Mitchell's essay about Mazie in Up in the Old Hotel, acclaimed author Jami Attenberg's novel honours an extraordinary life and heralds a completely original approach to writing historical fiction.
Weaving together fictionalised diaries, writings and interviews, Attenberg has constructed an utterly convincing portrait of Mazie Philips, which is also a deeply moving portrait of New York as it passed through the First World War, Prohibition, the boom of the '20s, and then the terrible depression of the '30s.
Jami Attenberg is the author of The Middlesteins, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and was published in nine countries; a story collection, Instant Love; and the novels The Kept Man and The Melting Season. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at www.jamiattenberg.com and follow her @jamiattenberg.
