University of California Press Blog

Book Launch for They Called Me Mayer July

The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco will be hosting a book launch party for Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's new book, They Called Me Mayer July, on September 5th at 8pm. This will be the precursor to an exhibition of Mayer Kirshenblatt's artwork at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley that will run from September 10th to January 13th.

Mayer Kirshenblatt, who was born in 1916 and left Poland for Canada in 1934, taught himself to paint at age 73. Since then, he has made it his mission to remember the world of his childhood in living color, "lest future generations know more about how Jews died than how they lived." This volume presents his lively paintings woven together with a marvelous narrative created from interviews that took place over forty years between Mayer and his daughter, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Together, father and daughter draw readers into a lost world—we roam the streets and courtyards of the town of Apt, witness details of daily life, and meet those who lived and worked there. This moving collaboration—a unique blend of memoir, oral history, and artistic interpretation—is at once a labor of love, a tribute to a distinctive imagination, and a brilliant portrait of life in one Jewish home town.

The attached video is an adaptation of a piece that was produced for the accompanying exhibit.

Robert Frank's Falling Behind Reviewed in the New York Times

Robert Frank's recent book, Falling Behind, was reviewed in the August 5th edition of the New York Times Book Review. In his review, Daniel Gross writes: "Professor Frank deftly updates the argument for our current gilded age. The rise of an overclass, he convincingly argues, is affecting the quality of life of the rest of the population–and not in a good way." The full text of the review is available at The New York Times

Is He Dead? by Mark Twain on Broadway

Is He Dead?, a new comedy by master American novelist and satirist Mark Twain, adapted by David Ives, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Michael Blakemore, and starring Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz will open on Broadway in the the fall.

Richly intermingling elements of burlesque, farce, and social satire with a wry look at the world market in art, Is He Dead? centers on a group of poor artists in Barbizon, France, who stage the death of a friend to drive up the price of his paintings. In order to make this scheme succeed, the artists hatch some hilarious plots involving cross-dressing, a full-scale fake funeral, lovers' deceptions, and much more. The University of California Press edition was published in 2003 and was edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin. In Fishkin's estimation, it is "a champagne cocktail of a play--not too dry, not too sweet, with just the right amount of bubbles and buzz."

Is He Dead? will open on November 29, 2007 at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street, New York, New York). Previews begin November 8.

The Associated Press recently ran a story about the production, which ran in the International Herald Tribune.