The Puttermesser Papers

With dashing originality and in prose that sings like an entire choir of sirens, Cynthia Ozick relates the life and times of her most compelling fictional creation. Ruth Puttermasser lives in New York City. Her learning is monumental. Her love life is minimal. And her fantasies have a disconcerting tendency to come true--with disastrous consequences for what we laughably call "reality".

Puttermesser yearns for a daughter and promptly creates one, unassisted, in the form of the first recorded female golem. Labouring in the dusty crevices of the civil service, she dreams of reforming the city--and manages to get herself elected mayor. Puttermesser contemplates the afterlife and is hurtled into it headlong, only to discover that paradise found is also paradise lost. Overflowing with ideas, lambent with wit, The Puttermesser Papers is a tour de force by one of America's most visionary novelists. It was shortlisted for the 1997 National Book Award.