Lynne Sharon Schwartz
After being found on a sidewalk, knocked down by a bicycle on Columbus Avenue one block from New York’s Central Park, Joe Marzino remembers nothing, not even his own name. He awakens into the world with only the clothes on his back, a throbbing pain in his left ankle, and more questions than answers.
Joe’s search to discover his true identity exposes how even the most ordinary aspects of our lives are often extraordinarily felt. A Stranger Comes to Town is a masterful novel of self-discovery, revealing the multitude of histories and lives we each inhabit, as well as the many ways we seek to reinvent ourselves and reshape our pasts.
A Stranger Comes to Town is crafted with immense imagination and a skillfulness that reaffirms Lynne Sharon Schwartz, celebrated author of thirty books including novels, short fiction, poetry, criticism, and works of translation, as one of the most assured writers of our time.
Lynne Sharon Schwartz is the author of thirty books of fiction, essays, and poetry, including her novels Leaving Brooklyn, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Rough Strife, a finalist for the National Book Award. She has also published two memoirs, Ruined by Reading and Not Now, Voyager, and has translated from the Italian. Schwartz has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts in Fiction and, separately, for Translation, and the New York State Foundation for the Arts. She has taught widely, most recently at the Bennington College Writing Seminars and the Columbia University School of Arts.
