Publisher's Weekly
The mystery that attaches to the title of this collection of 15 short tales by the author of E.T. breathes through every story, from the seemingly straightforward ''A Man Who Knew His Birds,'' in which an ornithologist is deceived by a mad old fellow whose throat brims with birdsong, to the title story itself, an exquisite evocation of the deflowering of an Arab virgin by her prince. She becomes the moon and he the heavens, moving in rhythm with each other. In between, the slangy middle-Americanisms of ''Mr. Jones's Convention'' convince the reader that the conventioneer is simply in the clutches of a big-city hookerwho turns out to be a hermaphrodite. Profundity, wit and lore scholarly and exotic jostle one other so provocatively that excitement informs every page, never more urgently than in ''The Day Stokowski Saved the World,'' when two legless beggars propel themselves through the streets of New York and, unknown one to the other, suddenly stop singing their song of hope. These are tales that beg to be read. January 3
Library Journal
When a nomad suggests that in his solitary wandering he's lost touch with reality, his friend replies: ''It is there one meets the First Angel of God.'' Kotzwinkle's nimble stories, traveling clear of psychosocial complexities, make charming small talk with that Angel. He can be amusingly clever, as when a hostile spaceship unhappily encounters the Bronx. He can be delicate and wistful, too, in his imagining of the last days of Correggio, the Renaissance painter; ominous, when he matches the last priest of an ancient pagan god with Middle Eastern terrorists; or downright numinous, as when a couple lose their way to C.G. Jung's grave. Not to mention elegantly crafty in a fairy tale of a Russian prince's ice palace; and simply breathtaking, as he spins an erotic wedding tale into a sacred cosmic myth. Kotzwinkle's narrative confections are surprising and compulsively readable. Jeff Clark, SUNY Coll. at Old Westbury Lib.
The mystery that attaches to the title of this collection of 15 short tales by the author of E.T. breathes through every story, from the seemingly straightforward ''A Man Who Knew His Birds,'' in which an ornithologist is deceived by a mad old fellow whose throat brims with birdsong, to the title story itself, an exquisite evocation of the deflowering of an Arab virgin by her prince. She becomes the moon and he the heavens, moving in rhythm with each other. In between, the slangy middle-Americanisms of ''Mr. Jones's Convention'' convince the reader that the conventioneer is simply in the clutches of a big-city hookerwho turns out to be a hermaphrodite. Profundity, wit and lore scholarly and exotic jostle one other so provocatively that excitement informs every page, never more urgently than in ''The Day Stokowski Saved the World,'' when two legless beggars propel themselves through the streets of New York and, unknown one to the other, suddenly stop singing their song of hope. These are tales that beg to be read. January 3
Library Journal
When a nomad suggests that in his solitary wandering he's lost touch with reality, his friend replies: ''It is there one meets the First Angel of God.'' Kotzwinkle's nimble stories, traveling clear of psychosocial complexities, make charming small talk with that Angel. He can be amusingly clever, as when a hostile spaceship unhappily encounters the Bronx. He can be delicate and wistful, too, in his imagining of the last days of Correggio, the Renaissance painter; ominous, when he matches the last priest of an ancient pagan god with Middle Eastern terrorists; or downright numinous, as when a couple lose their way to C.G. Jung's grave. Not to mention elegantly crafty in a fairy tale of a Russian prince's ice palace; and simply breathtaking, as he spins an erotic wedding tale into a sacred cosmic myth. Kotzwinkle's narrative confections are surprising and compulsively readable. Jeff Clark, SUNY Coll. at Old Westbury Lib.
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Used availability for William Kotzwinkle's Jewel of the Moon