The Jump Artist

by Austin Ratner

Overview

A novel of Philippe Halsman's life, from Austrian prisoner, to Paris exile, to American celebrity photographer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934137277
Publisher:	Bellevue Literary Press
Publication date:	05/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	471 KB

About the Author

Austin Ratner’s debut novel, The Jump Artist, received the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and was featured in Publishers Weekly as one of the ten most promising debuts. Before turning his focus to creative writing, Ratner received his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, co-authored the textbook Concepts in Medical Physiology, and was Clinical Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at the Stony Brook UniversitySchool of Medicine. He is the recipient of a Sun Valley Writers’ Conference Fellowship and his work has been honored with the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize in Fiction. Ratner grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, has attended the Universityof Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two sons.

Editorial Reviews

In his debut, Ratner fictionalizes the story of Philippe Halsman, a renowned photographer who, as a young man in interwar Austria, had his life forever changed by an anti-Semitic kangaroo court. In the novel, "Philipp Halsman" and his father, Max, were hiking when, as Philipp looked away, Max fell off the lip of a cliff and died. The locals testified that Philipp murdered his father, whipping up an anti-Semitic frenzy. After time in prison and his banishment from Austria, Philipp attempts to build his life abroad with the burden of having been believed a murderer; only his mother and a small faction of intellectuals are convinced of his innocence. Ratner's recreation of Philipp's tortured psyche can be wearying, and Philipp's awkwardness-from his jailhouse fixations to the guilt and self-loathing that play so heavily in his life-serve to make him more of an enigma for the reader than probably intended. But, in a broader context, the story has tremendous resonance, given what had yet to come. (May)

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