Howard Burman

Paradise by Paradise Howard Burman

A novel about the disappearance of an enigmatic poet/prodigy, RolandParadise, as told through the words of Paradise and the testimony ofthose who knew him and those he knew. In a nonlinear structure, it unravels the story of Paradise from boygenius to watchmaker, to wartime codebreaker, to writer, to teacher, tohermetic genius. Roland Paradise the father, the son, the prodigy, theepicist, the enigmatist. The rumors, the stories, the accusations. Whereis he? Is he? Was he ever ?His mind was a cryptish place, an enigma, a harmless cipher machineknocked senseless by the insane attempts of others to decode it asthough it held an inherent truth while driving him to another time, toanytime. Roland Paradise was ultimately a sad and lonely figure, a possiblydelusional reclusive intellectual for whom life held little joy. For all hisbrilliance, he never learned life's simplest lessons. A compulsive fabulistwhose life and disappearance was more fantastic than any of the storieshe invented or the lies he couldn't help telling.