Read a post by Jerome Charyn on the romance of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe on the Yale Press Log
Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil is on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joe-DiMaggio-The-Long-Vigil/173247736020293
"[An] elegantly written and moving book. . . . This slender, nuanced mini-biography is as brilliant a piece of writing as I have ever read, with prose that is poetic, with a deep understanding of and feeling for DiMaggio."—Charles Stephen, Lincoln Journal Star
Lincoln Journal Star - Charles Stephen
This book has captured DiMaggio’s centrality in American popular culture at midcentury—how he became an American icon, how he wrestled with his celebrity, how he constructed stunted and complex personal relationships, especially with his fellow icon Marilyn Monroe.”—Aram Goudsouzian, author, King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution
"Jerome Charyn's meditation on Joe DiMaggio elegantly explores what DiMaggio meant to America and the price he paid for making it all look so damn easy."—Randy Roberts, Distinguished Professor of History, Purdue University
"This highly readable short book, really an extended essay, puts the life and career of a sporting icon in context."—Kevin Sweeney, Irish Times
Irish Times - Kevin Sweeney
"This is the first book any DiMaggio fan should read."—Allen Barra, San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle - Allen Barra
"Jerome Charyn, a distinguished novelist, brings a sympathetic imagination to a man whose talents seemed limitless on the field and death-choked off it."—Martin Levin, Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail - Martin Levin
….the book will give pleasure to those who fill with fever when baseball season is upon us.”—Molly McCloskey, Irish Times
Irish Times - Molly McCloskey
Jerome Charyn has not only written a superb book about a sports legend but, more to the point, he brilliantly informs us that even the icons among us must navigate emotionally and intellectually through the obstacles of expectations, achievements and disappointments that we all encounter. Charyn presents us with more than a sports book. This is a classic drama we can all relate to. You'll enjoy and remember this book.”—Robert K. Tanenbaum, author of Betrayed
"Jerome Charyn applies his considerable skills as a novelist to exploring the gnawing mysteries surrounding a man who 'was brutal in his devotion to the game.'"—Sam Roberts, New York Times
New York Times - Sam Roberts
"An intimate and compassionate meditation on DiMaggio which, while elegantly dissecting his genius on the field, does him the equally important honor of placing no more on his shoulders than he can reasonably bear. Charyn reminds us that everything about DiMaggio was extraordinary, including his limitations."—David Margolick, author, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink.
Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature and one of only three now writing whose work makes me truly happy to be a reader." — Michael Chabon
"If you are a sports fan, a Marilyn fan or just really enjoy a book that makes you think, you will enjoy Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil ... This is an extraordinary telling of Joe the man."—Leslie Wright, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Blogcritics.org
Seattle Post Intelligencer - Leslie Wright
Charyn […] is an American treasure…. Among this book’s virtues are brilliant passages of impassioned writing, […] and Charyn’s mastery of the popular culture in which baseball legends belong and thrive.”—Neil D. Isaacs, author of The Great Molinas and All the Moves
Read a post by Jerome Charyn on the romance of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe on the Yale Press Log
http://yalepress.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/author-post-jerome-charyn-on-the-roman
Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil is on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joe-DiMaggio-The-Long-Vigil/173247736020293
Read a post by Jerome Charyn on the romance of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe on the Yale Press Log
This highly readable short book, really an extended essay, puts the life and career of a sporting icon in context.—Kevin Sweeney, Irish Times
— Kevin Sweeney
Jerome Charyn, a distinguished novelist, brings a sympathetic imagination to a man whose talents seemed limitless on the field and death-choked off it.—Martin Levin, Globe and Mail
— Martin Levin
Accessing the moments and memories of a bygone era and a time of spectacular achievements, Jerome Charyn has delved into the mystery of Joe DiMaggio and brought him to life.—Leslie Wright, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Blogcritics.org
— Leslie Wright
Seattle Post Intelligencer
[An] elegantly written and moving book. . . . This slender, nuanced mini-biography is as brilliant a piece of writing as I have ever read, with prose that is poetic, with a deep understanding of and feeling for DiMaggio.—Charles Stephen, Lincoln Journal Star
— Charles Stephen
Jerome Charyn applies his considerable skills as a novelist to exploring the gnawing mysteries surrounding a man who 'was brutal in his devotion to the game.—Sam Roberts, New York Times
This is the first book any DiMaggio fan should read.—Allen Barra, San Francisco Chronicle
— Allen Barra
A child of the Bronx (i.e., Yankee Stadium), the versatile Charyn-novelist, short story writer, memoirist, critic, playwright-has written before about baseball, most notably in his novel The Seventh Babe. He also penned a novel about Emily Dickinson, and his ultimate praise of DiMaggio in this rumination is to compare DiMaggio's kind of poetry to Dickinson's. The book is not likely to change anyone's mind about DiMaggio, who remains a not particularly likable fellow here, as this is not a hagiography; it's much more thoughtful than that. This will be best savored by those who are already fans of Charyn, Joltin' Joe, the Yankees generally—or Marilyn Monroe. (Fans of Dickinson may be confused.)—M.H. — "Sneak Peak," Booksmack! 1/20/11
A novelist's sympathetic meditation on the life of the legendary New York Yankee.
This latest in the publisher's Icons of Americaseries is, perhaps, best understood as a response to Richard Ben Cramer'sJoe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (2000), a critical biography that, while acknowledging DiMaggio's preternatural gifts as a ballplayer, exposed the Yankee Clipper as an off-the-field nightmare of a person: friendless, greedy, and cheap. DiMaggio's mark on the game—three MVPs, 13-time All-Star, nine World Series championships, the untouchable 56-game hitting streak (see Kostya Kennedy's 56 for in-depth coverage)—and place in American cultural mythology endures. How was it that this splendid athlete lived a private life so appallingly at odds with his image? Charyn (The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson: A Novel , 2010, etc.) never contradicts Cramer's unsavory facts, but instead puts a kinder spin on them, painting Joltin' Joe as a baseball idiot savant, defined and ennobled by his isolation in centerfield and the batter's box, comfortable only within the confines of a game he perfectly understood, where his fierce will, intensity and pride drove him to win and made him, if not loved, certainly revered by the fans. The author identifies DiMaggio's need to be watched and desire for approval as the secret weakness of this shy, insecure man. Indeed, argues Charyn, DiMaggio's flaws—his morbid sensitivity, inability to bear mistakes and utter humorlessness—made him abetter player. After baseball, this "legend without a purpose," whose only genuine language was "the lyricism of his own body," became a stilted spokesman and the central attraction of any memorabilia show lucky enough to secure the services of the Greatest Living Player. Otherwise, he spent his last four decades carrying a torch for the deceased Marilyn Monroe, once famously and briefly his wife, who baffled him completely.
Though sometimes over the top as he reimagines DiMaggio—"[Yankee] Stadium's suffering Christ"—Charyn supplies an intriguing, plausible take on this notoriously opaque hero.
