Richard M. Elman

"These are Richard Elman's candid snapshots in prose of the various, mostly literary celebrities he encountered during his four decades as a working writer and journalist - among them Isaac Bashevis Singer, Tillie Olsen, Bernard Malamud, Faye Dunaway, Hunter S. Thompson, and other important artists and writers who were Elman's teachers and, occasionally, adversaries."--BOOK JACKET.

Cassie Louise Lightfoot, eight years old in 1939, has a dream: to be free to go wherever she wants for the rest of her life. One night, up on "tar beach" --the rooftop of her family's Harlem apartment building--her dream comes true. The stars lift her up, and she flies over the city. She claims the buildings as her own--even the union building, so her father won't have to worry anymore about not being allowed to join just because his father was not a member. As Cassie learns, anyone can fly. "All you need is somewhere to go you can't get to any other way. The next thing you know, you're flying above the stars." This magical story resonates with a universal wish. Originally written by Faith Ringgold for her story quilt of the same name, Tar Beach is a seamless weaving of fiction, autobiography, and African-American history and literature. - Author website.

A New York City cab driver's failure to distance himself from the degradation of his surroundings leads to a violent rampage when he attempts to rescue a teenaged prostitute.

Cathedral-Tree-Train is a brooding, unsentimental but loving elegy for the author's friend, abstract-expressionist painter Keith Sanzenbach. The net feeling is one of tremendous energy: it crackles with the energy of the subject matter and the focus required to write with clarity (and at moments, humor) through the foggy lenses of time, regret, bewilderment and loss. Highly recommended.