{"product_id":"savage-shorthand-the-life-and-death-of-isaac-babel-9780679643067","title":"Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel","description":"\u003cp\u003eHailed as the first great Soviet writer  Isaac Babel was at once a product and a victim of violent revolution. In tales of Cossack marauders and flashy Odessa gangsters  he perfectly captured the raw  edgy mood of the first years of the Russian Revolution. Masked  reckless  impassioned  charismatic  Babel himself was as fascinating as the characters he created. At last  in renowned author Jerome Charyn  Babel has a portraitist worthy of his quicksilver genius.  Though it traces the arc of Babels charmed life and mysterious death  Savage Shorthand bursts the confines of straight biography to become a meditation on the pleasures  torments  and meanings of Babels art. Even in childhood  Babel seemed destined to leave a mark. But it was only when his mentor  Maxim Gorky  ordered him to go out into the world of revolutionary Russia that Babel found his true voice and subject. His tales of the bandit king Benya Krik and the brutal raids of the Red Cavalry electrified Moscow. Overnight  Babel was a celebrity  with throngs of admirers and a train of lovers.  But with the rise of Stalin  Babel became a living ghost. Charyn brilliantly evokes the paranoid shadowland of the first wave of Stalins terror  when agents of the Cheka snuffed out artists like candle flames. Charyns chilling account of the circumstances of Babels deathhidden and lied about for decades by Stalins agentsfinally sets the record straight.  For Jerome Charyn  Babel is the writer who epitomizes the vibrancy  violence  and tragedy of literature in the twentieth century. In Savage Shorthand  Charyn has turned his own lifelong obsession with Babel into a dazzling and original literary work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45275573846069,"sku":"ByrdShop_0679643060","price":63.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780679643067.jpg?v=1780509981","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/savage-shorthand-the-life-and-death-of-isaac-babel-9780679643067","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}