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Rich Man, Poor Man / Beggarman, Thief / Evening in Byzantium / Nightwork
Rich Man Poor Man / Beggarman Thief / Evening in Byzantium / Nightwork Author:Irwin Shaw ~4 Complete Novels~ — Rich Man, Poor Man: — The story of brothers Rudolph and Thomas Jordache and their sister, Gretchen. The Jordaches are German-American, their father a 1920s immigrant who fought on the wrong side in the First World War and now in 1945 works in a down-beat bakery in New York. Embittered, brutal and miserly, Axe... more »l Jordache holds little charm for his defeatist wife or their disaffected offspring. Rudy, the dutiful son, is smart, diligent and quiet, working hard at school because he sees education as a passport to the better life he wants. He is the good guy. Tom is wild, indolent, aggressive, sees nothing beyond today and wants only to use his fists. He is the bad guy. As for Gretchen: naive, beautiful and restless, Gretchen just wants a guy. Three young people, all in their individual ways bright kids and all, in their individual ways, wanting out. Who will make their fortune and how ...?
Beggarman, Thief:
Wesley, haunted by his father's murder, begins a strange and deeply personal quest; Billy becomes involved with a girl who leads him into unexpected dangers; Gretchen finds new challenges and experiences a remarkable twist to her life. Moving between Europe and America, "Beggarman, Thief" is a brilliant novel chronicling the fortunes of one family - the joys, sorrows, successes and failures
Evening in Byzantium:
'They were honest men and thieves, pimps and panderers and men of virtue. There were beautiful women and delicious girls, handsome men with the faces of swines...' 'They were all gamblers in a game with no rules, placing their bets debonairly or in the sweat of fear...'
The place is Cannes, the setting, a film festival. The hero is Jesse Craig, forty-eight years old, whose survival is at stake in the midst of this gaudy carnival.
Nightwork:
Ex-pilot Douglas Grimes seeks to spend his remaining years in quiet solitude as a hotel night clerk but is thrust back into a life of action when he discovers one hundred thousand dollars and a corpse.« less