The Green Lantern

Jerome Charyn is known for his paeans to the workingman. Here is another work in that tradition, about a simple prop manager who finds himself unexpectedly—and literally—pushed into the spotlight, and a player in world history.

When Ivan Azerbaijan, known as Ivanushka, first set out for Moscow, he hoped for nothing more than to build sets for his mentor's production of King Lear. But when the lead falls suddenly ill, Ivanushka steps in and finds his performance the talk of Moscow. He falls under the scrutiny of Joseph Stalin, who allows starlet Valentina Michaelson to join the cast as Cordelia. Ivanushka is thrust headlong into the world of intrigue, terror, and distrust that was Stalin's Soviet Union.

Charyn depicts both the romance between Valentina and Ivan and the chaos of life under Stalin's watchful eyes with similar style, making the fear and confusion palpable in this audacious winter's tale. The Green Lantern is an exploration of Shakespeare, the Soviet Union, and what it is to "perform," by one of the great American writers.