$250,000, 1967

Item — Book Tote: 1

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

$250,000 was published in 1967 by G. P. Putnam's Sons. It is Cohen's only published novel. A draft of this book and production passes of the manuscript are located in Novels and Novellas, ($250,000, Box 14).

From the book jacket flap copy:

FRONT FLAP:

“Edward M. Cohen's first novel, $250,000, is a book that will hook you, turn you on faster than anything you've read in a long time. Put this Edward M. Cohen down as a genius.” —HARRY GOLDEN

$250,000 by EDWARD M. COHEN

Entertaining, horrifying and unforgettable, this brilliant first novel, which launches a highly gifted new American writer, makes A Mother's Kisses look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Written in the tradition of Albee and Pinter, this story of greed is played out in the blistering heat of a summer in New York while decaying relationships in a Lower East Side tenement splinter into irreparable fragments.

Bitter animosity pervades the slum apartment of a nearly senile crone and her old-maid daughter. As the daughter, Blossom, tries desperately to hold on to her $250,000 bank account, which has become the storehouse of her emotions, the son, Itchy, who has risen with his wife and child to the Miami-oriented middle class, plots to get the money to pay off gambling losses. A hypnotic story of venality that spirals upward with shock after shock to a shattering crescendo.

BACK FLAP:

About the Author

“I was born in New York City in 1936 and was initially interested in the theater. While attending Queens College, I turned to writing, first poetry and then short stories. In the last ten years, I have written two previous novels, both of which were unpublished for reasons I clearly comprehend now, and many stories, one of which was published ni the Spring, 1963, issue of Carleton Miscellany and one in the September, 1965, issue of Evergreen Review.

“During this period, I have supported my family with a career in the phonograph record industry. My business experience has had a great deal of influence on my writing and is very much a part of the novel.

“$250,000 is about money-how it is used to communicate emotion, how it becomes emotion in this society. The central character is surrounded by people who want to take from her, but she has been so deprived that she cannot give. Her emotions and her money become paralyzed, useless and eventually destructive.

“Because the characters are New York Jews, I could be placed in one school of modern writing; because the book is sexual and violent, I could be placed in another. I am, however, so deeply committed to my own writing and my own vision that I have never read another novel that I would have written without changes.

“I currently reside on Manhattan's upper West Side, near the Bloomingdale branch of the New York Public Library.”

EDWARD M. COHEN

Dates

Publication: 1967

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research. Staff may restrict access at its discretion on the basis of physical condition. Please email qc.archives@qc.cuny.edu for more information.