New Books In Literature

Ravage & Son (Bellevue Literary Press, 2023) by Jerome Charyn is a novel set in the Lower East Side of New York City in the early years of the twentieth century when it was America’s most crime-ridden and decadent neighborhood. Featuring an alluring cast of heroes, misfits, and monsters, Ravage & Son is part Jekyll and Hyde, part crime noir, part mystery novel, and ultimately an instant classic – a cinematic kaleidoscope that captures both the intense beauty and utter debauchery of humanity in this bygone era. At the heart of the novel is the menacing Lionel Ravage, a heartbroken powerbroker hell bent on making the world pay for the loss of his soul mate, and his illegitimate son Ben, a poor boy educated at Harvard who becomes a downtown detective for the Kehilla, a quasi-police force slapped with the responsibility of cleaning up the Lower East Side’s layers of dirt and crime. The younger Ravage fights to protect, while his father yearns to burn it all to the ground. They share a deep wound and savage love t