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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780393064971
ISBN number: 0393064972
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 448
Printing Date: February 18, 2008
Publishing house: W. W. Norton
Sale Popularity Level: 306737
Studio: W. W. Norton
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This comic masterpiece reimagines the American Revolution with a one-eyed spy, a heroic whorehouse madam, and a cunning George Washington.
Praised for one of the most 'singular and remarkable [careers] in American literature' (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World), Jerome Charyn now delights with this picaresque tour de force. He reanimates a war-torn Manhattan overrun by Redcoats and deserted by all but the Loyalists—and Mrs. Gertrude Jennings, the tempestuous, redheaded queen of Manhattan's most spectacular bordello. When the novel opens, young double agent John Stocking is being interrogated by Washington, a rebel commander far removed from the dour, silent man of most history books. As Johnny seeks to unlock the mystery of his birth and grapples with his allegiances, he falls in love with Clara, a gorgeous, green-eyed octoroon, the most coveted harlot of Gertrude's house. The wild parade of characters he encounters includes Benedict Arnold, the Howe brothers, 'Sir Billy' and 'Black Dick,' and a manipulative Alexander Hamilton.
Not since John Barth's The Sotweed Factor and Gore Vidal's Burr has a novel so dramatically re-created America's historical beginnings.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This was a thoroughly enjoyable and irreverent romp up and down the length of wartime Manhattan. The author took upon himself a daunting task--bringing many of our founding fathers, including George Washington, down to a human level, warts and all. He pulls it off brilliantly, and does it with a one-eyed double spy who serves as our traveling point of view, tunneled as it is. This could easily have gone very wrong. All the more amazing and satisfying that flies like the Star-Spangled Banner.
Rated by buyers 
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Have to wonder if the "professional" reviewers are reading the same book. That said, I finished it so that says something. I've read the history books on what's covered here and that is far more enjoyable. It is a little too ficticious and plot at time seems contrived to cover space. Seems like it tried to be literary and failed, instead of concentrating on a good story and believable characters, and leaving out the fantasy.
Rated by buyers -
I am a huge fan of all things Revolutionary War. That said, this one is, well, odd, but does keep the reader's interest enough to finish the book.
Real characters interact with the fictional and it produces a rather strange mixture, not to mention the convoluted prose used to tell the story.
Rated by buyers 
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Johnny One-Eye is the very first person narrative experience of one John Stocking, a young man experiencing the American Revolution very first hand. His uncertain parentage creates a structure that leads the reader to many historical figures, including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benedict Arnold, and so forth. Set mostly in Manhattan, there is no escaping the oddities of war and the human condition.
I enjoyed this book immensely. Like the American Revolution, Johnny One-Eye experiences all the ups and downs of the spy's life as he dodges about trying to please both sides.
Definitely worth your while.
Rated by buyers -
When reading non-fiction works of Colonial American history, my usual response is something like, "Very interesting perspective on the history of the age, but gee. I'd still like to get a sense of what was it like to be LIVING in those times? What did things SMELL like? What was the 'real deal' like?"
So, getting some answers to the 'real deal' question was part of my expectation of Johnny One-Eye...And the book delivers.
Jerome Charyn leverages the "narrative elasticity" inherent in fiction to create an appreciable sensory experience of how, perhaps, things really were at that particular time and place in American History.
It succeeds in crossing the fiction / non-fiction gap.
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