American Goliath

World Fantasy Award Finalist for Best Novel! A fantastical novel based on the story of America's greatest hoax, "the Cardiff Giant"-shows up even the legendary P.T.Barnum! All with a great twist from award-winning and regular F&SF author Harvey Jacobs, called "one of the country's most accomplished authors" by Kirkus Reviews. Gaze upon the ancient giant turned to stone! Hear him speak! In 1868, George Hull heard a sermon proclaiming America to be the land of Genesis, home to the "Giants in the earth." Scion of a wealthy New York family of cigar makers, Hull set out to prove that sermon right. And thus was born the Cardiff Giant. "Found" on Stubby Newell's farm in Cardiff, New York, in 1869, Goliath soon created more of a stir than any of P.T.Barnum's great exhibits - which, of course, piqued the interest of the Great Showman himself, who was never to be outdone when it came to separating suckers from their riches... The tale of Goliath and his creator is a witty, raucous, and bawdy tale of American life at its finest. Step right up and see! PRAISE FOR AMERICAN GOLIATH An inspired novel. -TIME Magazine A masterpiece...arguably this year's best novel. -Kirkus Reviews. A wonderfully engrossing read. It is an enlightenting and life-enhancing read. It is the best novel of a very fine writer and I recommend it to everyone who has given up of ever again being entertained at such a high level of aspiration. -SFWA Grandmaster Michael Moorcock If Mark Twain and Isaac Bashevis Singer went on a bender and collaborated on a novel, it would be American Goliath! Harvey Jacobs's masterpiece is a bawdy, joyous romp. It's a wonderful book. -Jack Dann Bells clanging, lights aflash, the plot's ball bangs and rebounds. . . . A wonderful and wonderfully funny book. -James Sallis LA Times His characters are haunting. . . . I have rarely enjoyed finding a writer as much as I have enjoyed my own discovery of Jacobs. -Robert Cromie Chicago Tribune He manages to satirize our all-too-human foibles and failures without becoming too blackly unforgiving. -Thomas M. Disch Washington Post Quietly amused, wry approach that gives distinction to Mr. Jacobs' work . . . his dry humor would be hard to improve on. -Elizabeth Easton The Saturday Review Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! Here in our wonderful American past you will find wonders rarely glimpsed before. Behold the greatest showman in the history of the ages! Gaze upon the ancient giant turned to stone! Marvel at our hero, as entertaining in his own way as Little Egypt! Look upon the amazing world of Harvey Jacobs! Come one, come all, for an experience never to be forgotten! -Fred Chappell Like Doctorow's Ragtime and George R. R. Martin's Fevre Dream, it's one of those totally realized, hallucinated pasts. It's swell. -Howard Waldrop A great book should aspire (and succeed) in making you laugh, making you cry and just maybe, making you think. . . . Harvey's novels will do all that. -John Pelan About Harvey Jacobs Harvey Jacobs is the award-winning author of "American Goliath" ("An inspired novel"-TIME Magazine). His short fiction has appeared in a wide spectrum of magazines in the USA and abroad including Esquire, The Paris Review, Playboy, Fantasy & Science Fiction, New Worlds, and many anthologies. In addition to the novels and short stories, he has written widely for television, the Earplay Project for radio drama, and helped create and name the Obie Awards for the Village Voice. He was publisher of the counterculture newspaper, East. He received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a New York Arts Council CAPS award for drama, a Playboy Fiction Award, and a Writers Guild of America script award.