The Grand Complication (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Allen Kurzweil
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The present
- Setting: Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Jerusalem
- Principal Characters: Alexander Short, Nicole (Nic) Short, Henry James Jesson III, Norton, Dinthofer, Irving Grote, Paradis, George Speaight, Frederick R. Stolz, Kucko, Donatello
- Genres: Long fiction, Amateur sleuth fiction
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Twentieth century, New York City, Libraries or librarians, New Jersey, Clocks or watches, Israel or Israelis, Jerusalem, Collecting or collectors, 2000’s
- Locales: Manhattan, NY, Brooklyn, NY, Jerusalem, New Jersey
In Allen Kurzweil’s first novel, A Case of Curiosities (1992), the narrator purchases, in 1983, a sealed box full of ordinary objects and then spends six years tracing the life of the owner, leading to the story of the adventures of Claude Page in nineteenth century Europe. In Kurzweil’s second novel, The Grand Complication, Claude’s story turns out to be the creation of Henry James Jesson III, an eccentric New York collector of books and objects and scholar of eighteenth century literature. Jesson bases Claude upon Alexander Short, a reference librarian at an...
[The entire page is 2002 words long]
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