Muck

“Those who lament that the novel has lost its prophecy should pay heed and cover-price: muck is the future” (Joshua Cohen author of moving kings and the book of numbers). in a Jerusalem both ancient and modern where the first temple squats over the populace like a Trump casino two young poets are about to have their lives turned upside down. Struggling Jeremiah is worried that he might be wasting his time trying to be a writer; the great critic broch just beat him over the head with his own computer keyboard. Mattaniah on the other hand is a real up-and-comer—but he has a secret he couldn''t want anyone in the literary world to know: his late father was king of judah. Jeremiah begins to despair and that despair yields a vision: that Jerusalem is doomed and that mattaniah will not only be forced to ascend to the throne but will thereafter witness his people slaughtered and exiled. But what does it mean to tell a friend and rival that his future is bleak? Can the very Act of Speaking a prediction aloud make it come true? If so does that make you a seer or just a schmuck? Dramatizing the eternal dispute between haves and have-nots between poetry and power Dr or burstein’s muck is a brilliant and subversive retelling of the book of Jeremiah: a profoundly funny comedy with apocalyptic stakes.