Ehrenreich, Ben

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

The Suitors (novel), Counterpoint Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including L.A. Weekly, New York Times, Village Voice, Topic, and Believer.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ben Ehrenreich's novel The Suitors is the author's re-imagining of Homer's Odyssey. Ehrenreich's version is "richly imagined" and "inspirited by a dazzling display of verbal gifts," wrote Carl Hays in Booklist. In the novel, the Odysseus character is called Payne. Payne has built a fortress around his wife, Penny, and then left her as he goes to fight a war in a far-off land. Penny finds herself surrounded by men eager to take Payne's place, but she remains loyal to her absent husband, until a mysterious stranger arrives. Hays felt that while any similarity to the original Odyssey is slight, The Suitors is worth reading on the merits of the author's "prodigious, Joycean prose." He also made note of the book's dark humor, fast-paced action, and psychological insight.

The novel's multiple levels of meaning were remarked upon by Victor Or in his Library Journal review of The Suitors. Or commented that the book's "excessive depiction of sex" might not be to some readers' liking, but he advised: "ultimately readers should look beneath the surface of this fable for its deeper connotations." The novel struck New York Times Book Review contributor Michael J. Agovino as somewhat "pretentious and smarter-than-thou," but he also found the book worthwhile despite that flaw, because the author "writes with an ease and pure line-by-line skill that's rare."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2006, Carl Hays, review of The Suitors, p. 43.

Library Journal, April 1, 2006, Victor Or, review of The Suitors, p. 82.

Los Angeles Magazine, April 1, 2006, Robert Ito, review of The Suitors, p. 128.

New York Times Book Review, May 14, 2006, Michael J. Agovino, review of The Suitors, p. 14.

Publishers Weekly, December 5, 2005, review of The Suitors, p. 27.

ONLINE

Agony Magazine,http://trashotron.com/agony/ (May 8, 2006), review of The Suitors.

Seattle Weekly,http://www.seattleweekly.com/ (July 5, 2006), Patrick Enright, review of The Suitors.