Out of Brownsville
Encounters with Nobel Laureates and Other Jewish Writers: A Cultural Memoir
University of Massachusetts Press
In this collection of literary portraits, Jules Chametzky shares his recollections of more than forty notable Jewish writers, from Alfred Kazin to Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Paley, Saul Bellow, Irving Howe, Cynthia Ozick, Leslie Fiedler, Tillie Olsen, Adrienne Rich, Allen Ginsberg, Joseph Brodsky, and Amos Oz—to name a few. Also included are cameo appearances by non-Jewish authors, such as James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, and Jose Yglesias. Not only do these various writers emerge as interesting and often complicated human beings, but Chametzky reveals himself to be a warm and gracious storyteller.
Legendary editor Jules Chametzky's book is auto-biography at its cleanest: one's life through the eyes of others. His astute, personable dispatches are a map of Jewish intellectual trends in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century.'—Ilan Stavans, author of Return to Centro Historico: A Mexican Jew Looks for His Roots
'Woven into these lively portraits and reminiscences of others are not only sudden illuminations of the characters portrayed and of the fleeting moments captured here, but also insights into the fragility of life, the power to create, and the strange magic of human encounters that make Jules Chametzky's memoir so touchingly social and pleasurable to read.'—Werner Sollors, author of Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture
'No student of American Jewish writing needs to be reminded that Jules Chametzky is one of its pioneers. . . . He now caps a distinguished career as critic, editor, and teacher with this delightful volume of memoirs.'—Joseph C. Landis, editor of Yiddish-Modern Jewish Studies
'A raconteur's timing and wit leaven the author's perceptive literary intelligence. This combination is so seductive, the stories so entertaining and engrossing that we only gradually come to recognize how gracefully we have been ushered into serious literary history.'—Daily Hampshire Gazette
'Chametzky's enthusiasm and welcoming spirit carry us eagerly on. He has a vast appreciation for the achievements of others, and generously acknowledges the influence on him of writers such as Kazin, Rosenfeld and Paley. Although Podhortez's neo-conservatism shattered their years of friendship, he describes the man's early achievements admiringly. Despite Chametzky's dismay, there is no animus. . . . What I came away with was a sense of the whole kind, eager mentsh, still hopeful about humanity.'—Jewish Currents
'If you too are a reader, a writer, a translator, or an editor, as I am, you can certainly do no better than to spend time with Jules Chametzky, as I have. What emerges in this series of portraits is also a self-portrait, and that alone is reason enough to read on.'—The Massachusetts Review
Jules Chametzky is professor emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and cofounder of The Massachusetts Review. His books include From the Ghetto: The Fiction of Abraham Cahan and Our Decentralized Literature: Cultural Mediations in Selected Jewish and Southern Writers, both published by the University of Massachusetts Press.
