Overture: In Which We Set the Stage
Act I. The Youth
1. In Which We Begin Near the Very End (1915–1859)
2. In Which Our Hero Is Born, Spends His Early Years, and Faces Personal Tragedy (1859–1872)
3. In Which Our Hero Gets—and Gives—an Education (1872–1877)
4. In Which Our Hero Suffers the Ecstasies and Agonies of Love (1877–1880)
5. In Which Our Hero Finds the Two Loves of His Life (1881–1884)
Act II. The Man of Business
6. In Which Our Hero Gains a Fortune, and an Enemy (1884–1887)
7. In Which Our Hero Publishes a Trial, and Endures the Trials of Publishing (1888)
8. In Which Our Hero, Writing About an Artist, Becomes One (1888)
9. In Which Our Hero Loves His People, Mourns His Father, and Dreams of Zion (1888–1890)
10. In Which Our Hero Loses His Fortune and Gains His First Great Character (1890–1894)
11. In Which Our Hero Meets a Dairyman (1894)
Act III. The Spokesman
12. In Which Our Hero Returns to Zion and Other Old Preoccupations (1895–1899)
13. In Which Our Hero Reads the Newspapers in Yiddish and
Becomes a Media Star (1899–1903)
14. In Which Our Hero Spends the Holidays with Us, Visits a Town He Has Created, and Fails to Get a Word in Edgewise
(1900–1907)
15. In Which Our Hero Confronts Pogroms and Politics
(1900–1905)
16. In Which Our Hero Gets Caught Up in Someone Else’s Solution (1902–1905)
17. In Which Our Hero Suffers a Revolution and Makes a Decision (1905)
Act IV. The Wanderer
18. In Which Our Hero Takes Longer Than He Thought (1905–1906)
19. In Which Our Hero Enters, and Exits, a New Stage (1906–1907)
20. In Which Our Hero Has Joyous Meetings and Tragic Partings, and Seeks a Buried Treasure (1907–1908)
21. In Which Our Hero Falls Ill (1908)
22. In Which Our Hero Rides the Rails, and Returns to the Stage (1909)
23. In Which Our Hero Looks Backward (1909–1911)
24. In Which Our Hero Fights Back Against Libels of a Frivolous and Tragic Nature, and Encounters His Alternate Selves (1911–1913)
25. In Which Our Hero Adapts (1913–1914)
Act V. The Old Man
26. In Which Our Hero Sees War and Warsaw (1914)
27. In Which Our Hero Makes His Farewells to His Vanished World, and Feels the Pain of Children (1914–1916)
28. In Which Our Hero’s Story Comes to an End, and a Beginning (1915–1916)
Epilogue: An Afterlife in Ten Scenes
Scene 1. New York/Washington, 1916
Scene 2. New York/London, 1912–1922
Scene 3. The Soviet Union, 1921–1929
Scene 4. New York, 1917–1939
Scene 5. Vilna, 1942
Scene 6. New York, 1943
Scene 7. New York, 1949–1959
Scene 8. New York, 1962–1964
Scene 9. Everywhere, 1964–2005
Scene 10. The Cloud, 2013
Acknowledgments
Bibliographical Notes
Index