Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Introduction by novelist Pam Durban. On the afternoon of February 24th; 1965; Amylu Danzer; a twenty-year-old art student who'd been visiting Jones Beach on Long Island; went missing. A month later; her body was swept ashore some sixteen miles away; at Far Rockaway. In this tender; courageous; and compellingly written memoir; the writer and photographer John Rosenthal looks back on his youthful friendship with Amylu; and; drawing on multiple sources--amongst them his own journals; the testimony of her family and some of the people with whom she studied; newspaper reports of her death; and the eyewitness account of one of the men who found her body--he seeks to answer some of the questions which have haunted him ever since he first learned of her death--questions which were either too easily dismissed or else were too easily answered at the time. SEARCHING FOR AMYLU DANZER is a powerful and unillusioned book; and in writing it Rosenthal has ensured that however short her life was; Amylu Danzer will not be counted as one of those which have no memorial...and are become as though they have never been born.

Relying on his memory of a dear friend; John Rosenthal has composed a once-in-a-lifetime reading experience. SEARCHING FOR AMYLU DANZER is funny; direct; and tantalizingly oblique; Rosenthal's dramatic study of his relationship with Amylu--and with his memory of her--is smooth; clear; and suspenseful. He masterfully shuffles time and event while weaving together photographic art; memoir; and novelistic technique. This book will knock you down in the way great books are supposed to knock you down. Skip it only if you've never lost someone you loved.--Clyde Edgerton

As in all great life writing; the central drama in John Rosenthal's unforgettable memoir; SEARCHING FOR AMYLU DANZER; is not between self and other; but within the narrator; between a recollecting self whose horizon of vision is wide; and a recollected self whose horizon of vision is narrow. While the story of his friend's mental instability and eventual death infuse the book with all the suspense of a page turner; the real subject of this amazing story is not Amylu but Rosenthal himself; how it is he became the writer who could tell this story with such compassionate understanding; not just for Amylu; but for himself; for the young person that he was; of that time and that place.--Alan Shapiro

Whatever it is--memoir; novel; extended prose poem; elegy--it's a beautiful book. Not a false note anywhere. Things are as they are; sometimes beautifully; sometimes sadly; sometimes simply factually. The point and pointlessness of life conjoined; as in the chance; contingent whorls of the driftwood surfaces. It left me exhilarated and depleted.--Jay Tolson

This short book feels like something perfect. Its impossible ambition is to understand the vagaries of time and memory and loss; and in that enterprise captures something even more important; the essence of friendship: our desire to understand each other. I loved it.--Daniel Wallace