EminemsRevenge: Jew Girl

You may recall that Lynne Scanlon's recent survey of readers led to the conclusion that few people ever go anywhere near publishers such as Lulu.com in search of books to read. However, there are some new and emerging talents who are using such facilities to get their work into print. And some of it is certainly worth examination. Whatever else, such writers form a marked contrast to the stuff which makes book-world headlines either online or in the mainstream media.

One such talent is a writer who calls himself EminemsRevenge. He is the author of Jew Girl, issued through Lulu.com last year.

Biographical details for EminemsRevenge are hard to come by, but he appears to describe himself as an 'Internet bad boy... who many consider to be the Howard Stern and Dave Chappelle of blogging.' He has a blog of his own, which I find just a tad difficult to get to grips with, but that's because I am old and barely know who the original Eminem is. He also has a web site -- ditto. But, if I read the signs correctly, ER is a black gentleman who was originally based in New York.

Now for his novel Jew Girl. Well, the title alone is provocative, shall we say. Edgy. To my mind, a bit dangerous, given what one knows about some of the past history of New York and the not always happy relationships between Afro-Americans and Jews. But then you would expect, or hope, that young (or new) talent would be willing to take a few risks.

You get the chance to dip into this book, both on Lulu and on Amazon.com, and the Amazon info is actually a lot better than that on Lulu. Amazon is the place to go to get a good feel for this book.

We learn, for instance, that 'the book pays homage to the forward thinking teacher who inspired him [the author] to read both Joyce and D.H. Lawrence and look outside the box of conventional thinking. This teacher built on a foundation created from information about Judaism shared with an inquisitive pre-adolescent EminemsRevenge by his next door neighbor, a rabbi cop, in the Rockaway peninsula of NYC.'

And you don't have to read very far in the offered extract before the Joycean influence becomes obvious.

Well, I must say I was quite impressed. There is some wit here, a considerable grasp of several languages, and a willingness to play with words which is reminiscent of John Lennon's prose (remember In His Own Write?). I didn't actually feel inclined to read the whole of Jew Girl, but I was interested to see what the man is up to. There is a talent here, I think, and if it's not entirely to my taste then so what?

Amazon offers a number of reader comments, and there are more on Lulu, and also here. Take a look, and see what you think. You might be surprised.