Joseph Kaufman
CONGRATULATIONS!
Joseph Kaufman
Finalist in the National Jewish Book Award, Fiction Category
The Legend of Cosmo and the Archangel
The Legend of Cosmo and the Archangel
Two boys growing into manhood over 25 years end up in similar situations but make very different choices. When the boys are 17, Nick, one of the protagonists, jumps off a very high cliff into a quarry on a dare in order to save Cosmo from being beaten to a pulp by some bikers. Cosmo spends the rest of his life trying to make the “leap” for himself, to save himself. Nick goes on to wear his “saviour” persona that eventually drives him into a terrorist organization from which he has to extract himself.
While both boys grown to men make disastrous mistakes, one learns much earlier in his life how to change, grow, and repair the damage he inflicted on the people around him. The other tries many things, including personal redemption, but always seems to miss the mark. The story line runs from 1967 through the late 1990s, touches on the American rebellion in the 60s, Viet Nam, and terrorism through out the 70s and 80s – through Ireland, France, Asia, and the Middle East. It ends in Jerusalem, to where all roads lead.
Release date: September 21, 2009
Price: $18 USD or NIS 75 (excluding taxes)
Purchase via French Creek Press
(NIS 30 shipping within Israel)
Reviews
“Reading The Legend of Cosmo & The Archangel is something like watching a double feature of The Breakfast Club and The Big Chill.
Here is how its Woodstock-era protagonists are introduced: ‘Frankie [Francine] was the friendship’s academic, Dave its athlete, Cosmo its charm and Nick its conscience, Joey… its spokesman and capo régime.’
“Nick’s breathtaking leap off a cliff to save his pal Cosmo from angry bikers earns him the “Archangel” epithet among the high-school quintet. Four years later, Joey alters the nickname to “Angel of Death” when Nick’s seeming indifference to having impregnated Frankie leads to her bloody death from a motel-room abortion.”
Read more at The Jerusalem Post
“A high school pact extends over decades in this epic novel of spiritual quest, self-discovery, and evolving friendships. As high school students in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Cosmo was their small group’s “charm” while Nick was its “conscience.” In an LSD-induced haze at Woodstock, the friends pledge a covenant of loyalty. But when Nick betrays another member of their group, both Nick and Cosmo embark on odysseys to find themselves. In Nick’s case, it’s an attempt to resurrect his standing as the “Archangel,” the golden boy who would sacrifice himself for his friends. Cosmo’s quest pursues booze, drugs, revenge, fame, and, eventually, a different sort of spiritual enlightenment. Throughout their wanderings, which stretch across continents, their youthful indiscretions and expectations haunt their abilities to move forward. Although the narrative’s sympathies are primarily with Cosmo, Nick’s story is the more compelling, as his religious strivings mirror his psychological struggles. The storytelling, which alternates between the two protagonists, is strong.”
– Publisher’s Weekly
“I am extremely impressed with this novel…such a great ride. Beautiful writing. very cinematic…you hooked me in, gave me pathos, real wisdom, transcendence!, and took me on a roiling, around the world adventure. A book about discovering destiny and transcending self in order to become what we really are…what greater aesthetic pleasure could one want from a book?”
– Jake Greenberg, literary critic
“Kaufman’s literary styling is remarkable. By continually tying in a strong physicality with a breadth of tangible details, Kaufman has created a palpable atmosphere. ”
– Jody Kordana, Berkshire Eagle
Joseph Kaufman, author of "The Legend of Cosmo and the Archangel"
About the author
Joseph Kaufman was born in 1955 in Pittsfield, Mass., and raised in this GE town of 40,000 where Jack Welch started out, located one hour west of Springfield and one hour east of Albany. Kaufman graduated with a degree in French literature from Bennington College where he was privileged to be a close student of Bernard Malamud. As a Peace Corps construction volunteer Kaufman lived in Togo, West Africa, for over 2 years, building schools, culvert bridges and small hospitals. Yeshiva and years working at the family business, marriage, and children prepared him for his current teaching passion.
A Good, Protected Life, Kaufman’s first novel, has more than 1000 copies in print. In writing his second novel, The Legend of Cosmo and the Archangel, Kaufman develops a style that speaks about choices and changes, and the different response each person can have to the same situations. He melds together the experience of Bennington College and the tutelage of Bernard Malamud, the Peace Corps in Africa, yeshiva in Israel, and the years working for the family business. But even more than his post-Pittsfield life, the development of his style is, in large part, the temperament forged from the pine and elm and barbecues of long-ago childhood – the lifelong sense of trying to punch his way out of Paradise.
Music
Bibliography
The Legend of Cosmo and the Archangel, published by French Creek Press Ltd., 2009.
A Good Protected Life, published by Walker Company, a division of Knopf, 1992.
Author’s reading list
- Fiction and Criticism: Proust forever and always
- Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift
- James Woods’ 3 books of criticism
- Wallace Stevens poems
- Joseph Roth’s The Radetsky March
- a reread of Chekhov’s stories
- poems of Cesar Vallejo
- D.H. Lawrence’s St. Mawr
