The Long Shadows
Описание книги
The Long Shadows: A True-Life Novel<br><br>The Long Shadows is a fascinating true-life novel about Jacob Reuben Erlich, who, at 8 foot 6, was among the tallest men in the world. Best known by his stage name, Jack Earle, he would overcome crippling shyness, depression, temporary blindness and the physical challenges of a giant's frame to earn widespread acclaim during his career as a silent film star, circus performer, artist, poet and vaudevillian.<br><br>Drawing on ten years of research culled from family lore, newspaper archives, historical documents and the recorded recollections of Earle's contemporaries, author Andrew Erlich weaves a fascinating bio-fictional account of a remarkable man and the cast of colorful characters who knew him. Along the way, we learn a great deal about courage, character, and one man's unique perspective on a broad sweep of history that encompassed the Great Depression, the immigrant experience in turn-of-the-century Texas, silent films, life in the circus, the modern art movement and the domestic anti-Semitism that accompanied the run-up to World War II.
Оглавление
Andrew Boone's Erlich. The Long Shadows
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1. Gargantua the Great
CHAPTER 2. New Shoes
CHAPTER 3. The River with Two Names
CHAPTER 4. The Giraffe
CHAPTER 5. The Neptune
CHAPTER 6. The Grand Parade
CHAPTER 7. Musso and Frank
CHAPTER 8. The Durbar Spectacular
CHAPTER 9. Madame Lya
CHAPTER 10. Uptown
CHAPTER 11. Baby Peggy
CHAPTER 12. Ruby
CHAPTER 13. Cotton Candy and Cacahuates
CHAPTER 14. Cuco and the Four Horsemen
CHAPTER 15. The Blue Book
CHAPTER 16. Cocoanut Grove
CHAPTER 17. The Subway
CHAPTER 18. Major General George Moseley, U.S. Army, Retired
CHAPTER 19. Carol Marie
CHAPTER 20. Sightless
CHAPTER 21. Big Jim Tarver
CHAPTER 22. Robert Wadlow
CHAPTER 23. Artemus
CHAPTER 24. The Ringling School of Art
CHAPTER 25. Hari Kidd
CHAPTER 26. South El Paso Street
CHAPTER 27. Juarez
CHAPTER 28. Santa Fe
CHAPTER 29. The Wreck
CHAPTER 30. Dr. Morris Fishbein
CHAPTER 31. The Trial
CHAPTER 32. Blind Justice
CHAPTER 33. The Clash of the Titans
CHAPTER 34. The End of the Magic
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Отрывок из книги
I would like to thank my wife, Robin, my son, Ben, my daughter, Danielle, and my mother, Ruth, for their patience, love, and support over the years as I wrote this novel. I am grateful to Bobby Davidoff, Susan Davidoff, Ray Klein, Michelle Bartlett, Rhoda Goodman, and Diane Barshop for their valuable feedback. I would like to thank my mother-in-law, Edna Pindler, for sharing her memories of early Hollywood.
My coach, Lori DeBoer, was instrumental in introducing me to writing and motivating me to keep at it. This work would not have been possible without the generosity of Jake’s friends and the children and grandchildren of his friends who shared their recollections, stories, photographs, and home movies. In particular, I would like to thank Diana Serra Cary of Northern California; Bob Phillips, Betty Snyder, Fred McDaniel, and Cita Schuster of El Paso; and Marise McDermott, Amy Fulkerson, and Sarita Rodriguez of the Witte Museum in San Antonio. I also appreciate the help I received from Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin and the John Ringling Circus Museum in Sarasota, Florida. I am grateful to Dr. Michael Tomor, Christian Gerstheimer, Michelle Villa, Laura Zamarripa and Jeffrey Romney of the El Paso Museum of Art, and photographer Marty Snortum for their efforts to share Jake’s art with the world. I also want to thank Eric Pearson, of the El Paso Community Foundation, and Sally Gilbert and Norma Geller of Impact | Programs of Excellence for their help in telling my uncle’s story. Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge Sean Garrison for his guidance and counsel, Michelle Radomski for her work laying out this book, Ilisa Keith for her efforts to publicize it, Laura Mitre for her formatting and Courtney Wilhelm for her editing.
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I had to escape. I jumped to my feet and ran to the door. Before anybody could grab me, I bolted. I almost knocked down the nurse standing in the hallway as I charged by her. Then I sprinted through the waiting room that was full of patients and dashed down the stairs and out onto Oregon Street.
I ran. I ran past the benches in the plaza and the tiled fountain with the two sleeping, olive-green alligators. I ran across the train tracks and by the St. Regis Saloon, where the old cowboys drank.
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