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Cataract Blues: Running the Keyboard
In his latest book, award-winning author Roger Rosenblatt charts a journey that is as visual as it is poetic. Cataract Blues, on the surface, is a collection of lyric fragments illustrated by the legendary Jules Feiffer. A careful reading (and viewing) rewards bibliophiles (and optical aficionados) with a nuanced, thoughtful, and magical paper machine that is about seeing, cataracts, mystery, the blues, insight, love, and memory. At once a masterpiece of creative non-fiction and a poetic experiment, ‘Blues invites readers to consider new approaches to the visual and the literary.
Advance word on Cataract Blues…
“While everyone around you is seeing red, along comes a happy outpatient who’s just nuts about the color blue. Prompted by his wildly successful eye surgery, Roger Rosenblatt celebrates his new favorite wavelength by letting it wash over everything that matters — nature, history, music, memory, laughter, loss, and love. This is a master, at work and at play.”
Garry Trudeau, Author and Illustrator of Doonesbury and Former Doonesbury in the Time of Trumpism
“Cataract Blues is a poem, a pastiche, an elegy and a riff—a celebration of life in all its colors and shades, its sweetness, its beauty, its comedy, its pain. A gift from two of our most cherished artists, jamming together - gloriously.”
Alice McDermott, Author of Charming A Novel and What About the Baby?
“It's a pleasure to watch Roger Rosenblatt's astute and lively mind skip nimbly from vision (in both the physical and metaphorical senses) to music, from poetry to film, from the joys of ordinary life to the inevitable pain of loss—and to marvel at the skill with which he alchemizes all of it into something deeply moving and profound.”
Francine Prose, Author of Her History, Her Myth and The A Novel
Advance word on Cataract Blues…
“While everyone around you is seeing red, along comes a happy outpatient who’s just nuts about the color blue. Prompted by his wildly successful eye surgery, Roger Rosenblatt celebrates his new favorite wavelength by letting it wash over everything that matters — nature, history, music, memory, laughter, loss, and love. This is a master, at work and at play.”
Garry Trudeau, Author and Illustrator of Doonesbury and Former Doonesbury in the Time of Trumpism
“Cataract Blues is a poem, a pastiche, an elegy and a riff—a celebration of life in all its colors and shades, its sweetness, its beauty, its comedy, its pain. A gift from two of our most cherished artists, jamming together - gloriously.”
Alice McDermott, Author of Charming A Novel and What About the Baby?
“It's a pleasure to watch Roger Rosenblatt's astute and lively mind skip nimbly from vision (in both the physical and metaphorical senses) to music, from poetry to film, from the joys of ordinary life to the inevitable pain of loss—and to marvel at the skill with which he alchemizes all of it into something deeply moving and profound.”
Francine Prose, Author of Her History, Her Myth and The A Novel
80 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2023
3 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Roger Rosenblatt
58 books148 followersROGER ROSENBLATT, whose work has been published in 14 languages, is the author of five New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and three Times bestsellers, including the memoirs KAYAK MORNING, THE BOY DETECTIVE, and MAKING TOAST, originally an essay in the New Yorker. His newest book is THE STORY I AM, a collection on writing and the writing life.
Rosenblatt has also written seven off-Broadway plays, notably the one-person Free Speech in America, that he performed at the American Place Theater, named one of the Times's "Ten Best Plays of 1991." Last spring at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, he performed and played piano in his play, Lives in the Basement, Does Nothing, which will go to the Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook, and the Flea Theater in New York in 2021. He also wrote the screenplay for his bestselling novel LAPHAM RISING, to star Frank Langella, Stockard Channing, and Bobby Cannavale, currently in production.
The Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at SUNY Stony Brook/Southampton, he formerly held the Briggs-Copeland appointment in creative writing at Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. Among his honors are two George Polk Awards; the Peabody, and the Emmy, for his essays at Time magazine and on PBS; a Fulbright to Ireland, where he played on the Irish International Basketball Team; seven honorary doctorates; the Kenyon Review Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement; and the President's Medal from the Chautauqua Institution for his body of work.
Rosenblatt has also written seven off-Broadway plays, notably the one-person Free Speech in America, that he performed at the American Place Theater, named one of the Times's "Ten Best Plays of 1991." Last spring at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, he performed and played piano in his play, Lives in the Basement, Does Nothing, which will go to the Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook, and the Flea Theater in New York in 2021. He also wrote the screenplay for his bestselling novel LAPHAM RISING, to star Frank Langella, Stockard Channing, and Bobby Cannavale, currently in production.
The Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at SUNY Stony Brook/Southampton, he formerly held the Briggs-Copeland appointment in creative writing at Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. Among his honors are two George Polk Awards; the Peabody, and the Emmy, for his essays at Time magazine and on PBS; a Fulbright to Ireland, where he played on the Irish International Basketball Team; seven honorary doctorates; the Kenyon Review Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement; and the President's Medal from the Chautauqua Institution for his body of work.
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