As far as romance goes, Dr. Jakob Sammelsohn is fairly incurable. Twice married, once divorced, once widowed—all by the tender age of twelve— he finally flees his small village and his pious, vengeful father. A lovelorn candied, young Dr. Sammelsohn wanders optimistically through history—pursued by the amorous ghost of his dead wife.
Arriving in Vienna in 1890, a chance encounter with Sigmund Freud leads our hero into the arms of Emma Eckstein, one of Freud’s most famous patients. Later he romances the beautiful and wealthy Loe Bernfeld, who carries him into the world of Esperanto and the universal language movement. Finally, Dr. Sammelsohn finds himself in the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, only to become a pawn in a battle over the path to heaven.
A Curable Romantic is a novel of personal and historical exile that could spring only from the literary imagination of a virtuoso. Often fantastical yet always grounded in tradition and history, it is that rare literary feat —a truly incomparable tale, ingenuously told, peopled with characters who live on in the memory.
作者簡介
JEFF WOODMAN originated the title role in Tennessee Williams' "The Notebook of Trigorin" and won the san Francisco Critics' circle Award for his performance in "an Ideal Husband" In addition to numerous Off-Broadway credits, his TV appearances include Law & Order, Sex and the City, and Cosby. His more than 200 audio book narrations has earned him numerous awards, including a People magazine "Annual Top Five" citation and a spot in AudioFile magazine's "Top Fifty Voices of the Century".
Joseph Skibell is the author of two previous novels, A Blessing on the Moon and The English Disease. He has received a Halls Fiction Fellowship, a Michener Fellowship, and a National
Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, among other awards. He teaches at Emory University and is the director of the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature.
