Pall, Ellen, (Corpse de Ballet) [hc, Minotaur Books, 2001] 978-0312280338 [mass mkt pb, Minotaur Books, 2002] 978-0312980108
United States · Fiction author
Ellen Pall
Ellen Pall (born 1952, Long Island, NY) – She completed her higher education at U.C. Santa Barbara and resides in Manhattan, New York City. Her novels frequently incorporate Jewish characters and themes, often reflecting her own background and observations of secular Jewish life in New York. Pall’s treatment of Jewishness typically focuses on cultural identity, secularism, and family dynamics rather than religious observance. Juliet Bodine, her protagonist in her two mystery novels, is an author of Regency romance novels and a former professor of English literature at Barnard. She partners with a NY Jewish cop named Murray Landis. As a prominent freelance journalist, Pall frequently writes about individuals in the arts. Her work is regularly featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books. [Google/AI]
Pall, Ellen, (Slightly Abridged) [hc, Minotaur Books, 2003] 978-0312281854
Pall, Ellen, (Must Read Well [hc, Bancroft Press, 2022]) 978-1610885423 [pb, Bancroft Press, 2023] 978-1610885430 [The book functions as a high-stakes, domestic psychological game that deals heavily with interpersonal crime, fraud, and historical secrets. Elizabeth, a desperate, struggling Columbia University PhD candidate, orchestrates a calculated web of lies to infiltrate the life of Lily, a reclusive, legally blind 80-year-old literary icon. Elizabeth scams her way into a job reading Lily’s private journals aloud. Her actual intent is to steal Lily’s private, unpublished life stories to build her own academic career. The novel is deeply rooted in the upper-class, intellectual world of Manhattan’s Upper West Side Jewish elite. The generational tension, the academic background, and the specific literary subculture all carry the distinct cultural-secular Jewish framework characteristic of Pall’s writing. Unlike the Nine Muses books (the previous two Pall books cited), which feature murder, Must Read Well focuses on white-collar and psychological crimes: identity fraud, intellectual property theft, severe betrayal, and escalating blackmail. – Google/AI]