A Note from the Author: The two long pieces in this book originally came out in The New Yorker – RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS in 1955, SEYMOUR – An Introduction in 1959. Whatever their differences in mood or effect, they are both very much concerned with Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my series about the Glass family. Oddly, the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years. I can’t say why, though. Not, at least, outside the casino proper of my fiction.


‘The Glasses are one of the liveliest, funniest, most fully-realized families in all of fiction’ Charles McGrath, New York Times