Jordy Rosenberg – författare

Set in the eighteenth century London underworld, this bawdy, genre-bending novel reimagines the life of thief and jailbreaker Jack Sheppard to tell a profound story about gender, love, and liberation.   Recently jilted and increasingly unhinged, Dr. Voth throws himself into his work, obsessively researching the life of Jack Sheppard, a legendary eighteenth century thief. No one knows Jack’s true story—his confessions have never been found. That is, until Dr. Voth discovers a mysterious stack of papers titled Confessions of the Fox. Dated 1724, the manuscript tells the story of an orphan named P. Sold into servitude at twelve, P struggles for years with her desire to live as “Jack.” When P falls dizzyingly in love with Bess, a sex worker looking for freedom of her own, P begins to imagine a different life. Bess brings P into the London underworld where scamps and rogues clash with London’s newly established police force, queer subcultures thrive, and ominous threats of an oncoming plague abound. At last, P becomes Jack Sheppard, one of the most notorious—and most wanted—thieves in history. An imaginative retelling of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, Confessions of the Fox blends high-spirited adventure, subversive history, and provocative wit to animate forgotten histories and the extraordinary characters hidden within.“Confessions of the Fox is a riotous and transporting novel. It’s rich in the sound of another time, while thrillingly germane to our own. Jordy Rosenberg is a total original—part scamp, part genius—who has written a rollicking page-turner of a first novel. Hang on for the ride.”—Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts“Hot damn! Jordy Rosenberg is one of the finest new talents I’ve seen in many years, and Confessions of the Fox is a startlingly good debut novel. The book is rich with fact and well-invented fiction, bubbling with ideas that surprise and satisfy.”—Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling

From the author of Confessions of the Fox comes a novel in which a yenta on her deathbed gives an unrepentant account of all her failures—including her child.“A rant of comedic genius . . . [Jordy Rosenberg] writes with an enchanting command of language and satire.”—Melissa Broder, The New York Times Book ReviewIn a cluttered rent-controlled apartment in the middle of Manhattan, Barbara Rosenberg is terminally ill, high on opioids, and writing the story of her life. She has opinions about her smutty late husband, her career as the receptionist for a disreputable plastic surgeon, her glory days as an accomplished jazzerciser, and her failed aspirations to be a film noir actress. But what she really wants to talk about are unhinged thoughts on gender, Karl Marx, Zionism, and her two great disappointing loves: an estranged trans son and a long-lost best friend whose betrayal haunts Barbara still. As she descends further into delirium and illness, Barbara finds herself in a nightmare from which she cannot escape, and her circumstances put her on a crash course with these intimates—or are they avenging nemeses?—once again. Part novel, part someone’s mother’s unauthorized memoir—all diatribe, gutter schtick, and deranged manifesto, Night Night Fawn is a ferociously candid account of intergenerational conflict.

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, 2019Finalist for the Publishing Triangle Award, 2019 A New Yorker Book of the Year, 2018 A Huffington Post Book of the Year, 2018 A Buzzfeed Book of the Year, 2018 'Quite simply extraordinary... Imagine if Maggie Nelson, Daphne du Maurier and Daniel Defoe collaborated.' Sarah Perry, author of The Essex SerpentJack Sheppard - a transgender carpenter's apprentice - has fled his master's house to become a notorious prison break artist, and Bess Khan has escaped the draining of the fenlands to become a revolutionary mastermind. Together, they find themselves at the center of a web of corruption leading back to the dreaded Thief-Catcher General ... ...Or so we are told in a mysterious manuscript unearthed by one Professor R. Voth. Voth traces the origins and authenticity of the manuscript as Jack and Bess trace the connections between the bowels of Newgate Prison and the dissection chambers of the Royal College, in a bawdy collision of a novel about gender, love, and liberation.SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE