Miriam Levine's first novel is loosely based on a newspaper account of a
New Jersey domestic tragedy. Her protagonist, European-born widower
Ben Shein, is middle-aged, a successful furrier in Paterson, New Jersey, in
the early 1940s when the novel opens. Lonely and ghost-haunted by his
dead wife Tess, Ben pursues and marries the young and beautiful shopgirl
Judith Karger against the advice of his brother Nat, who struggles to leave
the family's fur business. Their marriage soon disintegrates, and Ben's
ten-year-old daughter Susan, his only child, becomes an innocent victim of
the bitter unhappiness between her father and stepmother.

     Levine's novel portrays the tragic side of the immigrant dream. The Sheins
have all the trappings of success, yet they are caught up in an inexplicable
fate foreshadowed by the ravings of the madman Joe Mavet and the taint of
the family business—working with the skins of dead animals. Paterson is as
much a character as any of the city's inhabitants and comes to stand for any
urban American locale—where immigrants strive to assimilate as they play
out the dramas of their lives.


_________________________________________________________

Born in Paterson, New Jersey, MIRIAM LEVINE is the author of
Devotion: A Memoir, three poetry collections, and A Guide to Writers'
Homes in New England. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts
fellowship and grants from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, she was a
fellow at Yaddo and Hawthornden Castle. Her work has been published in
such venues as the Paris Review, Kenyon Review, and Harvard Review.
Levine chairs the English department at Framingham State College near
Boston and divides her time between Massachusetts and Miami Beach,
Florida. Currently she's at work on a new novel and a poetry collection.

What people are saying about this book
"A dazzling American tragedy. The characters who play out their fates here
are indelible and hauntingly real . . . figures of the enduring legacy of
immigrant life, its spectral humor and sheer tenacity."—Patricia Hampl
 
"A wonderfully lyrical and naturalistic depiction of northern New Jersey
during the 1940s, In Paterson portrays a sympathetic cast of relative
innocents adrift in a time of war and psychological disruption. This is a
deep-feeling and well-crafted book."—Alan Cheuse

"Riveting. Levine recreates a family tragedy with the surety of stroke of a
Goya, a Rembrandt, bringing the reader from the deep, shadow side of
human nature to the filtered light of redemption. I couldn't put this book
down."—Julia Markus