The Puttermesser Papers, Cynthia Ozick
The Puttermesser Papers, Cynthia Ozick
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The Puttermesser Papers

Author: Cynthia Ozick

Narrator: Natasha Lyonne

Unabridged: 8 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/10/2023


Synopsis

Yearning for a life of the mind, Ruth Puttermesser finds herself mired in the lowest circles of city bureaucracy. Her love life hopeless, her fantasies more influential than wan reality, she nevertheless turns out to be the best mayor New York City has ever elected. Soon enough, though, paradise gained becomes paradise lost, and--even for a wistful visionary like Puttermesser--the problem of disappointment remains unresolved.

About The Author

Cynthia Ozick, a recipient of a Lannan Award for fiction and a National Book Critics Circle winner for essays, is the author of Trust, The Messiah of Stockholm, The Shawl, and The Puttermesser Papers. She lives in New York.


Reviews

As you read this review, please bear in mind that The Puttermesser Papers really defies summarization. What I offer here can only be the most impoverished of overviews. The book must be read! Ruth Puttermesser is a woman, an attorney, living alone in New York City. Her mother, retired with her fathe......more

Goodreads review by Ian

Flaubert's Epigraph The epigraph for Cynthia Ozick’s fourth novel is a quotation of a literary critic from Julian Barnes's novel “Flaubert's Parrot”. Barnes' subsequent comments are so scathing, it’s quite possible to read his novel, unaware that the ostensible source of the original quotation, Dr. E......more

Goodreads review by Jamie

Socially awkward spinster Ruth Puttermesser leads a kind of double life. Her career as a paper pushing attorney deeply ensconced in New York City's mammoth bureaucracy lies in stark contrast to her personal life as a kind of introverted intellectual with her head firmly stuck in the clouds. Both, I......more

Goodreads review by Paul

Cynthia Ozick writes some truly beautiful prose. Her metaphors and turns of phrase are relentlessly unexpected and have the organic majesty of a garden gone wild. The book compiles five unconnected episodes from the life of Ruth Puttermesser, an introverted grotesquely over-educated Jewish civil ser......more


Awards

  • IMPAC Dublin Literary Award