Courting Laura Providencia

By Jack Pulaski

Book Overview

Puerto Rican, Russian-Jewish, and Italian cultures collide in homage both to the art and form of the novel, as well as to the passions and histories that fuel our American lives. Pulaski's prose boxes through the surreal and banal. The novel weaves the maelstrom of immigrant life in post WWII New York, and the terrifying solitude of Alzheimer's cloaked beneath Vermont winters, into a fable where the sacred and the profane are inextricably wed. Courting Laura Providencia is a literary devotional.

Laura said she was sure he was the father, packed up her things, and moved out of the apartment. She had been cheerful as she collected her belongings. She said Isaac was the sweetest boy she had ever known, and "a rare thing, muy singular, a Jewish drunk." Isaac wanted to say that was not exactly right, but he was drunk at the time and so he sang to her. Laura snapped the suitcase shut, settled herself in a chair, smiled, and let him sing. For a moment Isaac was stunned. It happened often looking straight into the face of Laura Providencia could cause amnesia, sleepwalking, and archaic longings which might require several lifetimes to understand. He had seen it happen to others.

Jack Pulaski was born and grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. His stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, Ohio Review, Ploughshares, MSS., and The New England Review, as well as in two anthologies: The Pushcart Prize I and The Ploughshares Reader. He is the recipient of a fiction award from the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, and his stories have twice been singled out for high praise in the Nelson Algren Short Fiction Contest. Pulaski currently lives in Vermont.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0939010674
• ISBN13: 9780939010677
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Zephyr Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

You Can Take the Surrealist Out of Brooklyn, But...

Jack Pulaski is multi-cultural Brooklyn's answer to Dylan Thomas -- except that Pulaski took to the Vermont woods and survived, while his Welch counterpart came to New York... too bad for Dylan Thomas. As for Jack Pulaski's writing -- the Kotzker Rebbe one reviled a visiting Chassidic philosopher by roaring, "Your teachings come from the mind, my teachings come from the gut!" That's where Pulaski's superbly-crafted stories come from, too (evidently a very surrealistic place). Superb, courageous, inspired writing!

An Unexpected Treat!

Not even sure how I came to this book --think I read a review in The New York Times..but so glad I found it!... I thoroughly enjoyed Jack Pulaski's style of writing and the emotional depth of his characterizations. To borrow a phrase from the book jacket --there is incredible intensity in his writing and I felt real glimmers of Philip Roth (and Henry Roth's work) in this book. Look forward to his future work and totally recommend it to anyone who wants to capture a bit of mid-century NYC...Also, like the short story style that makes each chapter a separate story in itself.