Because I Was Flesh

Few books in the history of New Directions have received such praise as came to Edward Dahlberg's autobiography, Because I Was Flesh, which is now on our paperback list.Alfred Kazin wrote: 'A work of extraordinary honesty, eloquence and power, it redeems with one mighty creative act the suffering of a lifetime. It is one of the few important American books published in our day.' And Allen Tate spoke of 'the hair-raising honesty, the profound self-knowledge, and the formal elegance of the style,...a combination that has not previously appeared in an autobiography by an American.' Sir Herbert Read called the book, 'A great achievement. A masterpiece. The magnificent portrait of the author's mother is as relentless, as detailed, as loving as a late Rembrandt.'Because I Was Flesh is the story of Edward Dahlberg's life as a child and young man-in Kansas City, in a Cleveland orphanage, in California and New York-and of the remarkable woman, his mother Lizzie, who shaped it. Seldom has there been so ruthless, and yet so tender a dissection of the mother-son relationship. And from it Lizzie Dahlberg, the lady barber of Kansas City, emerges as one of the unforgettable characters of our literature. This is a book of many dimensions, an authentic record from the inferno of modern city life, and a testament of American experience.