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Essays, Manifestos, Statements, Speeches, Maxims, Epistles, Diaristic Jottings, Narratives, Natural histories, Poems, Plays, Performances, Ramblings, Revelations, and all such ephemera as may appear necessary to bring society into a slight tremolo of confusion and fright at least.

Smiles on Washington Square

Raymond Federman

Winner of The American Book Award

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Buy a PDF file

Digital Only

A Sun & Moon title.

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In this, his fifth novel in English (and its first paperback edition), the acclaimed French-born writer and poet, Raymond Federman, has given us the bittersweet tale of Moinous and Sucette who fall in love "across a smile" in Washington Square. With the masterful ease of a tightrope walker, Federman plays with our sense of time and space as he creates, with extraordinary compassion, a tale that makes us see our own vulnerability and worthiness. Stylistically, his links to Beckett are evident in the stripped down prose, the remarkable symbolism and word games, and in his focus on the downtrodden and inarticulate castaways of an industrialized world. Ultimately, Smiles on Washington Square is a book that teaches us there is no easy story, no safe entrance, no line of action not fraught with obstacles and humiliation; yet, in the face of the inevitable disappointment of the human condition, Federman shows us how sweet possibility is.