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Thomas Murphy : A Novel - Roger Rosenblatt

Thomas Murphy

A Novel

By: Roger Rosenblatt

Paperback | 21 November 2016

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A witty and reflective tale of love, loss, and wonder

An Irishman, a dreamer, a poet Murph, like Whitman, sings lustily of himself and of everyone. He conjures the islands that have shaped him: Manhattan, his longtime home, and Inishmaan, off the Irish coast. He muses on Oona, his late wife of fiftysome years, and Greenberg, his late best friend. He embraces the living: his scolding, loving daughter and his grandson, a small and delicious replica of himself.

Then into his life comes Sarah, less than half his age and blind, who sees into his heart. Murph finds his querulous self capable of intimacy again. They are drawn to each other by a shared contemplation of joy, beauty, and the suffering world. Through Murph’s often extravagant behavior and observations, both hilarious and profound, we see the world in all its strange glory, equally beautiful and ridiculous.

Behold the charming, wistful, vibrant, aging Thomas Murphy, whose story celebrates the ageless confusion that is this dreadful, gorgeous life.

About the Author

Roger Rosenblatt is the author of six off-Broadway plays and eighteen books, including Lapham Rising, Making Toast, Kayak Morning and The Boy Detective . He is the recipient of the 2015 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement.
Industry Reviews

"Murph's rambling monologue reveals discernment and feeling, as a favorite George Eliot quote puts it, especially in riffs on poetry, regret, cooking, and the upside of forgetting.... Murph proves a memorable hero as he faces his last years as though he won't crash if he goes full tilt." -- Publishers Weekly

"[P]ure poetry... a brief but lovely rumination on one man's irresistible impulse to savor life's riches, even as losses mount and the ravages of age take their relentless toll...With a character as distinctive as this clear-eyed poet by our side, it's a rewarding journey." -- BookPage

"Rosenblatt, essayist, memoirist and fiction writer, has created a memorable character with a magnetic personality. There is a wondrous fluidity to his prose. Thomas Murphy is a eulogy to a man who has followed his own rules and who has learned to live with his deepest regrets." -- Washington Post

'Thomas Murphy is a joyous ode to language as it gropes to give voice to the ineffable." -- Newsday

"This is the sort of novel you mark up with pleasurable abandon, so that you can read passages aloud later to someone else... Thomas Murphy is so well written, it was difficult not to." -- East Hampton Star

"Rosenblatt has always demonstrated an affection for the play of words on the page, and in Murphy he's created the perfect character to showcase that facility for language... a rewarding journey." -- BookPage

"In this superb, slim novel, Rosenblatt delivers shrewd and funny observations about always going'full tilt, ' no matter what life throws at you as you age." -- People

"Rosenblatt's accomplishment is to draw the reader so completely into Murphy's mind and heart and memory, so thoroughly into the poet's amused (and sometimes bemused) consciousness...the writing soars and you are grateful for the fine writer who puts poetry in Murphy's mouth." -- New York Times Book Review

"Even when the poems aren't coming, Murphy is a delight to listen to." -- Wall Street Journal

"Aging poet Thomas Murphy, whose memory isn't what it used to be, looks back on his colorful life." -- USA Today, New and Noteworthy

"There are no dips or lags in tempo in this novel... Thomas Murphy is a eulogy to a man who has followed his own rules and who has learned to live with his deepest regrets." -- Seattle Times

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