A Curable Romantic

Possessing “a gifted, committed imagination” (New York Times), Joseph Skibell is the author of three novels, A Blessing on the Moon, The English Disease, and A Curable Romantic; the forthcoming collection of nonfiction stories My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things; and another forthcoming nonfiction work, Six Memos from the Last Millennium: A Novelist Reads the Talmud. He has received numerous awards, including the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Sami Rohr Award in Jewish Literature, Story magazine’s Short Short-Story Prize, and the Turner Prize for First Fiction.

As director of the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature from 2008 to 2015, he sang and played guitar onstage with both Margaret Atwood and Paul Simon. A professor at Emory University, Skibell has also taught at the University of Wisconsin and the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. Recently a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, he is the Winship Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities at Emory University. A native Texan, he lives mostly in his head.

JEFF WOODMAN originated the title role in Tennessee Williams' "The Notebook of Trigorin" and won the san Francisco Critics' circle Award for his performance in "an Ideal Husband" In addition to numerous Off-Broadway credits, his TV appearances include Law & Order, Sex and the City, and Cosby. His more than 200 audiobook narrations has earned him numerous awards, including a People magazine "Annual Top Five" citation and a spot in AudioFile magazine's "Top Fifty Voices of the Century".

“Skibell’s delicious juxtaposition of Sammelsohn against the cocaine snorting Freud, and Sammelsohn’s infatuation with the ‘cruel, vindictive, haughty, caustic, dismissive, even murderous’ character of Emma Eckstein, one of Freud’s patients, make for a magnetic collection of personalities.”
     ―Publishers Weekly [starred review]

(Jewish Book World)

“Skibell’s sweeping, imaginative epic chronicles the tumultuous life of an endearing protagonist, Dr. Jakob Sammelsohn, which includes a unique relationship with Sigmund Freud, the universal language movement, and WWII ... [Skibell] crafts a vivid, artfully clever tale grounded in turn-of-the century Europe.”
      ―Booklist [starred review]

“Jeff Woodman is a chameleon. He vanishes into each character and milks every satiric ounce out of Skibell’s merry novel in one of the best audios of the year.”
      ―Publishers Weekly [starred review]

“This is a fascinating, ambitious, and very successful novel about Jewish folklore, the quest for spiritual truth, and the darkest days of the 20th century. As he did in A Blessing on the Moon, Skibell blends gritty realism with elements of fantasy and magical realism....It is to Skibell’s credit that this complex plot comes off as believable, engaging, and often inspiring.”
      ―Library Journal [starred review]

“Skibell’s quirky humor and sweeping imagination transform weighty topics into flights of fancy.”
     ―Jewish Book World