Saint Mazie - Hardcover

Attenberg, Jami

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1455599891 ISBN 13: 9781455599899

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

Meet Mazie Phillips: big-hearted and bawdy, she's the truth-telling proprietress of The Venice, the famed New York City movie theater. It's the Jazz Age, with romance and booze aplenty--even when Prohibition kicks in--and Mazie never turns down a night on the town. But her high spirits mask a childhood rooted in poverty, and her diary, always close at hand, holds her dearest secrets.

When the Great Depression hits, Mazie's life is on the brink of transformation. Addicts and bums roam the Bowery; homelessness is rampant. If Mazie won't help them, then who? When she opens the doors of The Venice to those in need, this ticket taking, fun-time girl becomes the beating heart of the Lower East Side, and in defining one neighborhood helps define the city.

Then, more than ninety years after Mazie began her diary, it's discovered by a documentarian in search of a good story. Who was Mazie Phillips, really? A chorus of voices from the past and present fill in some of the mysterious blanks of her adventurous life.

Inspired by the life of a woman who was profiled in Joseph Mitchell's classic Up in the Old Hotel, SAINT MAZIE is infused with Jami Attenberg's signature wit, bravery, and heart. Mazie's rise to "sainthood"--and her irrepressible spirit--is unforgettable.

About this title

Review

"Full of love and drink and dirty sex and nobility.... Attenberg takes Mitchell's witty, colorful piece and spins it into something equally lively and new."--New York Times Book Review

"Boisterous and compassionate."--O Magazine

"Attenberg is a nimble and inventive storyteller with a particular knack for getting at the heart of outsized characters. . . . [she] proves her chops as a historical novelist by perfectly capturing Mazie's jazz-age voice, which ranges from clipped and vulgar to melancholy and lyrical. Attenberg also sidesteps many of the pitfalls of the form: no day-by-day plodding through the decades, no unedited research notes masquerading as dialogue. She resists any plot twist or final revelation to provide a tidy psychological explanation for Mazie Phillips-Gordon sainthood."--Washington Post

"[F]resh and witty... SAINT MAZIE looks deep into the spirit of generosity. Jami Attenberg's Mazie lives a very big life in a very small space, turning her darkest experiences into something inspiring."--Wall Street Journal

"Attenberg captures Mazie's voice so vividly you can close the book and still hear her talking. She is a tremendous achievement. ...[A] bold, magnificent book about family, altruism, women and freedom, as well as a love letter to New York and a timely social manifesto for the 21st century."--The Guardian

"A winning novel and a lovely tribute to a New Yorker whose only claim to fame is her outsized kindness. Her Mazie is richly imagined and three-dimensional, and in these pages she lives forever."--Los Angeles Times

"[I]ngeniously constructed.... An attentive character study that also happens to be rich in city lore and period detail, SAINT MAZIE is an edifying, companionable and moving novel."--Kansas City Star

"An exuberant portrait of an unforgettable woman and the city she loves." --BBC.com

"The hugely talented Jami Attenberg, most recently author of The Middlesteins, has built a novel based on an imagined diary of Mazie Phillips, a Bowery movie-theater proprietress."--New York Magazine

"The Middlesteins author Jami Attenberg has traded writing about the Midwest for Jazz Age New York-and, oh, what a glorious swap it is. If you love historical stories with bold language that vividly paint a picture of another era, you'll be so happy to spend your summer days alongside Mazie Phillips, the real-life proprietress of a downtown NYC movie theater called The Venice. Take a peek inside Mazie's diary, and get swept away."--Bustle, "The 17 Best Books of Summer"

Book Description

An ingenious novel that imagines the life and times of Mazie Philips, a real-life saint from New York City, by the highly acclaimed author of The Middlesteins

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1455599891
• ISBN 13: 9781455599899
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336