Minkoff, George Robert 1943-

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Minkoff, George Robert 1943-

PERSONAL:

Born February 9, 1943, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Harry and Ruth Minkoff; married Gail Garrick, October 18, 1968 (divorced, 1980); children: Charles Garrick, Kenan Russell. Education: Clark University, B.A., 1965.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Great Barrington, MA. Office—George Robert Minkoff, Inc., Rare Books, 26 Rowe Rd., Alford, MA 01230. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Bookseller and writer. George Robert Minkoff, Inc., Rare Books, Alford, MA, owner, 1967—.

MEMBER:

Poetry Society of America (member of board of directors, 1986—).

WRITINGS:

A Bibliography of the Black Sun Press, G.R. Minkoff (Great Neck, NY), 1970.

(Editor, with J.D. McClatchy) The Poetry of Song: Five Tributes to Stephen Sondheim, Poetry Society of America (New York, NY), 1992.

The Weight of Smoke (novel), McPherson (Kingston, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

A prominent dealer in rare books, George Robert Minkoff began his own writing career as a playwright in the 1960s. His first book was A Bibliography of the Black Sun Press, a survey of works published by the publishing house founded by American poet Harry Crosby. Minkoff later coedited The Poetry of Song: Five Tributes to Stephen Sondheim, a series of essays examining the works of the noted Broadway lyricist.

The Weight of Smoke is Minkoff's first novel and written as the first in a proposed trilogy titled "In the Land of Whispers." Described as "epic historical fiction" that is "elegantly expressed in the prose of the seventeenth-century Englishman" by ForeWord contributor Nelly Heitman, the novel is set in the early 1600s as the Jamestown colony is first established in what would later become Virginia. Key characters include Jamestown leader John Smith, Native American chief Powhatan and his daughter Pocahontas, and English naval commander Sir Francis Drake. Heitman described the novel as "rich with metaphorical language." A contributor to Kirkus Reviews called the book "meticulously researched." An Internet Bookwatch reviewer remarked that The Weight of Smoke "reads with the flourish of an odyssey, and the dark reality of grim history."