Copyright © 2012 by Leslie Epstein
All rights reserved
First Edition
Parts of this novel were previously published in
Superstition Review and The Seattle Review.
The original manuscript of Gustav Mahler’s
libretto for Rübezahl is in the Osborn Collection of the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Some of the characters in this novel are based on those who have lived in the past or are living now; but they have been so altered by the action of the author’s imagination that it would be a mistake to think that any resemblance between an incident or character in this book and an event or person in real life is anything other than coincidental.
“On a Slow Boat to China” by Frank Loesser, copyright ©1948 (renewed) by Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation. “Pagan Love Song,” words and music by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, copyright © 1929 (renewed 1957) by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. All rights administered by EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. (publishing) and Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. (print). All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. “I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi (I Like You Very Much),” lyrics by Mack Gordon and music by Harry Warren, copyright © 1941 (renewed) by Twentieth Century Music Corporation. All rights controlled and administered by EMI Miller Catalog Inc. (publishing) and Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. (print). All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. “The Continental,” words by Herb Magidson and music by Con Conrad, copyright © 1934 (renewed) by WB Music Corp. and Bernhardt Music. All rights administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Epstein, Leslie.
Liebestod : opera buffa with Leib Goldkorn / Leslie Epstein. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-393-08131-2
1. Goldkorn, Leib (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Jews—New York (State)—
New York—Fiction. 3. Holocaust survivors—Fiction. 4. Jewish musicians—Fiction.
5. Mahler, Gustav, 1860–1911—Fiction. 6. Opera—Fiction. 7. New York (N.Y.)—
Fiction. 8. Jewish fiction. 9. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.P655L54 2012
813’.54—dc23
2011042395
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