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DG COMICS
N E W Y O R K , N E W Y O R K
 WILL EISNER
writer and artist

DC COMICS

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A O n i n i t i Wut God ü 1978, 1985, 19B9. IW5, 1996 WÜI E t a *

P u W i » W by DC C ™ a , 1700 B n > a n r , Ne» Vorii. N T 10014
Tbc - : . t i , .. ,>--. and mciJcnrr. ponraycd in rhis puhÜLirian J H
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T'nnr.-.l in CwudlL-
DC Curak*. A diviaitm pf Warner B T I K . - A Time Warner
Enienaiiiniüiii Company, VWt [iur«el'Hiic ut wivwxducinnicb.tQin

ISBN l - t e J H W i - S

R n f D C Comic* prmlim: March 2000-

 CONTENTS

A Contract W i t h God 5

The Street Singer 67

The Super 97

Cookalein ...127
 PREFACE
Early in 1940, after an intimate involvement with the birth and
burgeoning of the so-called cornic book art form, I undertook a weekly series
entitled The Spirit. This was to be a complete story to appear as a newspaper
insert comic book every Sunday, Ir revolved around a freelance masked
crime fighter in the heroic tradition and would, the distributing syndicate
hoped, latch on to the growing national interest in comic books.
W i t h all the self-assurance of youth, I plunged into the task without
much real planning. It was not until I came up for air after the first fifteen
weeks that I realized the full magnitude of this undertaking. In fact, I was
delivering a short story a week to an audience far more sophisticated and
demanding than the newsstand comic book reader. The reality of the task
and the enormous perimeters of the opportunity were t h r i l l i n g ,
and I responded with the euphoria and enthusiasm of a frontiersman,
i n the twelve years that followed, I thrashed about this virgin territory in an
orgy of experiment, using The Spirit as the launching platform for all the
ideas that swam in my head.
W i t h hindsight, I realize I was really only working around one core
concept—that the medium, the arrangement of words and pictures in a
sequence—was an art form in itself- Unique, with a structure and gestalt all
its own, this medium could deal with meaningful themes. Certainly there
was more for the cartoonist working in this technique to deal with than
superheroes who were preventing the destruction of Earth by supervillains.
I was not alone in this belief. ! n the middle 1930s, Lynd Ward explored
this path in his remarkable attempts at graphic storytelling. He produced
several complete novels in woodcuts. One of these books, Frankenstein, fell
into my hands in 1938 and it had an influence on my thinking thereafter.
I consider my efforts in this area attempts at expansion or extension of Ward's
original premise.
A t the time, to openly discuss comics as an art form—or indeed to claim
any autonomy or legitimacy for them—was considered a gross presumption
worthy only of ridicule. In the intervening yearsT however, recognition and
acceptance has fertilised the soil, and sequential art stands at the threshold
of joining the cultural establishment. Now, in this climate warmed by serious
adult attention, creators can attempt new growth in a field that formerly
yielded only what Jules Feiffer referred to as junk art. The proliferation of
stunning arc and imaginative exploration is but an early harvest of this
germinanon. For me, the years after I stopped producing The Spirit were
devoted to the application of the comic book art form to education, instruction
and other pragmatic directions. Satisfying and rewarding as these were, they
were also demanding, and so there was little time available to putsue the
experiments I set aside in 195 L Twenty-five years later, given the time and
opportunity, I embarked on the effort which you hold in your hands; a harvest
at last from seedlings I had carried around with me all those years.
In this book, 1 have attempted to create a narrative that deals with intimate
themes. In the four stories, housed in a tenement, I undertook to draw on
memory culled from my own experiences and that of my contempotaries.
I have tried to tell bow it was in a comer of America that is still to be revisited.
The people and events in these narratives, while compounded from
recall, are things which I would have you accept as real. Obviously in the
creation, names and faces were rearranged. It is important to understand the
times and the place in which these stories are set- Fundamentally, they were noi
unlike the way the world of today is for those who live in crowded proximity
and in depersonalized housing- The importance of dealing with the ebb and
flow of city existence and the overriding effort to escape it never seems to change
for the inhabitants.
In the telling of these stories, I tried to adhere to a rule of realism
which requires that caricature or exaggeration accept the limitations of
actuality. To accomplish a sense of dimension, I set aside two basic working
constrictions that so often inhibit the medium—space and format.
Accordingly, each story was written without regard to space, and each was
allowed to develop its format from itself; that is, to evolve from the narration.
The normal frames (or panels) associated with sequential (comic book) art
are allowed to take on their integrity. For example, in many cases an entire
page is set out as a panel. The text and the balloons are interlocked with the
art. I see all these as threads of a single fabric and exploit them as a language.
If I have been successful at this, there will be no interruption in the flow of
narrative because the picture and the text are so totally dependent on each
other as to be inseparable for even a moment.
Finally, 1 must confess to a certain sense of uneasiness at trying to explain
what I'm about to present. I have always cringed with embarrassment when
listening to an artist, writer, or musician preamble an offering with an explanation
of what he or she is trying to do. It is almost as though one is begging the
audience to excuse the imperfections or—at the very best—seeking to
influence the judgment that will surely come. Perhaps I , too, am a victim of
this insecurity, because for me, this is a new path in the forest.
To colleagues who encouraged the effort, to my family who urged me
co try, to Rose Kaplan, who edited this work, and the others who read the
early drafts and offered advice—my thanks.
White Plains, New York
August 1978

Addendum the third printing: In die years since A Contract With God was
first published, die book has been translated into six languages, including,
appropriately, Yiddish—a language in which I can think but cannot read or
write, I have since written several other books in this medium. They are
more polished technically but with this maiden work, a big piece of my
heart, remains.
Tamarac, Florida
January 1989

Addendum to the fifth printing: In the seventeen years that A Contract

With God has remained in print, the enlarging field of fine graphic novels
has reinforced my belief that there would be a continually growing audience
for the literary pretensions of this medium. After many subsequent works,
I can still look back at this maiden effort without embarrassment and I retain
for it the special affection one has for a first child.
Tamarac, Florida
June 1995

Addendum to the DC Edition first printing: Now, at long last this book, my
first graphic novel, will enter its seventh printing under the DC Comics
flag- After 22 years of being " i n print" it is assuring to know that its future
will be in their strong and knowledgeable hands-
I want also to acknowledge my deep gratitude to Denis Kitchen who was
responsible for its continued publication during most of those years.
Will Eisner
Tamarac, Florida
March 2000
 INTRODUCTION
DENNY D'NEIL

When I agreed to do this article, I planned to cheat. Instead of actually

assessing A Contract With God, I thought I'd pay tribute to the astonishing
anomaly that is its author, W i l l Eisner: the creator of a self-described "middle-
class hero" who has fumse.f been a professional nonconformist; the rebel
who has prospered working within that epitome of the Establishment, the
Department of Defense; the hard-working, unpretentious deadline meeter
who, nonetheless, produces his genre's best art. There is a major critical
work to be written about W i l l Eisner and 1 had hoped to use this space to
begin sketching at it, and, accidentally, to confess my own admiration for
the man. ( I have tried on at least twenty different occasions to write a " W i l l
Eisner story" and I haven't yet come close.)
But I wanted to avoid dealing with A Contract With God because I didn't
think Td like it and I didn't care to publicly dump on a continuing source of
enjoyment and inspiration; tetter to avoid the issue. Td glimpsed the book at
a lecture Eisner had given a week prior to publication and 1 wasn't impressed.
It seemed that not even Eisner had accomplished what comics professionals
are forever talking about: transcending the limitations of commercial comic
books and using the medium for something other than simplistic morality
tales, baby science fiction and, in the case of the undergrounds, scatological
satire—which are the things comics have been at their best, and not to be
scoffed at. Still, isn't there anything else?
The answer is yes, as of the publication of A Contract With God. After
reading the book five times, I am convinced it needs no apologia. Goethe's
critical dictum remains the best: the critic can only decide what the artist was
trying to accomplish, and whether he succeeded. By that standard, A Contract
With God is a near masterpiece.
However, for me to appreciate Eisner's achievement I had to resolve
two problems—which may bother you, too. The first was a preconceived
notion of what a comic is. I've written over 700 comic book stories and read tens
of thousands and so, despite the pretensions to perception and objectivity
that accompany a reasonably fancy degree in English Lit, I pick up a comic
with reflexive anticipations. Action, movement, extravagant locales, a cer-
tain kind of pacing and—may the ghost of Henry James forgive me—abroad
drama of crime and punishment: those are my expectations from anything
with pictures and word balloons, and they are catered to very little in Contract.
The second difficulty is that, being from the Irish-Catholic Midwest, I am
largely unfamiliar with the Jewish milieu that forms W i l l Eisner 5 memories.
What he has given us here are those memories, as tales, and realized i n
a fusion of image and copy. They are simple and they are harsh; there are no
easy morals to be gotten from them- The Good Guys don't win and the Bad
Guys don't lose because there are no good guys and bad guys. Instead, there
are lonely, frightened, and ambitious people, immigrants seeking relief from
poverty, despair, and the dread that, unhappy as the present is, the future
may be worse. A man remembering in that way is not likely to depict heroes
and villains; rather, he will be compassionate toward everyone, winner and
loser alike, and compassion is the pervading, unstated theme ot Eisners
work. His sympathetic recognition of human frailty and folly is most evident
in his representation of sex: not the smirking prudence that usually passes
for the erotic in comics {and i n many other arenas of popular culture) but
the pleasures of the body as a palliative for misery and as manifestations of a
raging libido—enjoyed, incidentally, by individuals nor particularly beautiful.
Of course, such autobiographical reminiscence is common in modern
writing; it is the raw material of the stories of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth,
and Isaac Bashevis Singer, to name three of dozens of Jewish writers. But
Eisner s presentation is unique: with the fusion of image and copy 1 mentioned
earlier he mimics the operations ot memory itself, perhaps as well as they can
be imitated on paper.
The prologue which relates the background of the Bronx tenement that
is the setting of the stories and a brief digression explaining the plight of Jews
in Czarist Russia correspond to the gestalt ot the consciousness—information
a bright child would acquire from His environment without anyone specifically
teaching it. The scenes he could not actually be remembering, the scenes he
was not present at, are the adult's attempts to make whole his childhood
recollections, to fill in the gaps, a process akin to psychoanalysis. Eisner
writes in the past tense, a departure from normal comics technique; these
are, after all, past events. Yet his dialogue, presented in the familiar balloons, is
present tense; one remembers words in the mode i n which drey were spoken.
There is no contradiction here: Eisner is using the resources of the language
exactly as a novelist uses them, to combine past and present into a single
experience, and with the added resource of his artwork.
 The pictures are Eisner's special contribution and what lifts the book
into its own category. I've heard casual readers complain that Eisner's people
are "cartoony" compared to his realistic cityscapes, and in his comic strips
the contrast does take getting used to (though it is worth the effort); this
may explain why his Spirit comics have not been as commercially successful
as lesser, more conventional strips. However, in A Contract With God, the
exaggerated features of the characters work for the whole. The child in us does
not remember the adults we met as they actually were; he remembers them as
archetypes—as caricatures, almost. He remembers them as Eisner draws them.
Similarly, we do not recall every detail of the houses and streets we inhabited
as children, as anyone who has ever visited a childhood neighborhood after
a long absence will testify: we recall impressions, the sort of mnemonic sketches
Eisner draws. The Bronx of A Contract With God is much less precisely
rendered than the Central City of The Spirit, and that is surely a conscious
decision of a thinking attist intent on introducing us to his private, interior
experience instead of reproducing the world as most of us see it. Eisner even
puts the ink the book is printed i n to his artistic uses: it is sepia brown, a
close approximation of the monochrome psychologists say is the color of
dreams—and memories.
I realize I'm making A Contract With God seem very complicated. It isn't.
What Eisner has accomplished needs to be seen: once it is, everything is plain,
and no explanation or elaboration is necessary.
The book fulfills Goethe's criterion: it succeeds splendidly and uniquely
in being what Eisner wants it to be.
 A T E N E M E N T

A t 55 PropiieAve^ue/t^Brorpc,
New1 yorkr not farfrom trie elevated
etatiorj- stood the terneflt.

Like the others it-washuilt ground

1920 ^herj the decayirjej apartrnerjt
r]Ou$e$ irjloWerMa/iliattar) c*>uld
no longer accorrjrnodate the flood
of irnmicjraiite thatpoiired iirto
Mewyork after WorldV/ar I .
after the IP century
leg alters for a
multiple mdlir$
tliatliouied tenants
-so^n occupied larcje
tracfe of Bronx land.

By 1930 they "Were already part of the

roots cfa"Wiole nev/ group of first-
generation Americans andtlieir
foreigrj-Joort] parerjts.
fasiie- in tlje ''railroad-flat ''layouts
lived lo-w-paid city employees, laborers,
clerks and their families/iVy teerped
vOitb a rjoisy rjeii $e rpt
unlike ttielire-s newcomers
liad left antV'otrier side,11 It -wae
irjd of ship board frllonShiy si
 pae^engew in trariex-t-for, they,
wre on. a voyage of upward mobility.
They "Were tntetit on their o^n
survival/ busy With breedind their
youqg and d r y i n g of a better life
they K:neW existed* Uptown /
what covnmurmy spirit
there \was, stemmed fern their
'hostility toward aoomipor)
0 gj. enemy -the landlord/

55 Drop5ieAverjue -was typical of

most tenements, Its tenants "Were
Varied.fwie came and-Went. Many
remained there for a life time...
imprisoned, by poverty or other
factors. It "Was af^rt of micro-T/ilkge
-and the vOorld -v^Prop^ie Avenue.

3
"Withiri its "Walls
great ararr\2& Were
played out.
There "Was m real
privacy-ïio anonymity
One was either a -
participant or a
.member of the
front-row audience, •
v
Every body
Knew about p

everybody/' *^
Thfi iollov/ii)^
storied are based
on life in these '
tenements during
the 1930&... the
dirty thirties.'
They are true
stories.
Only the telling
arid the .
portrayals have
converted,
tlnem tof iction.
7
The è^werg overflowed
and trie -watera rose
over the curbs of trie street
 The tenement at wo.55 Dropsie
Avenue $tere\ed ready to rise
and -float away on the swirling
tidei'Like the ark of HoahJ!.. |
Seemed toFrimrne Hersh 25 ne
Sloshed homeward.
 etears of
ten t h o u s a n d
W}m awe]
tld cause
ud) a delude/
And, came to think
of it, maybe
that is exactly
what it-was.,.
12
...to others, irjaybe.
but not toïHîtiipe HerSİ).
 And u % not to Frimme
J-fersh ??

That^ a fair yueéiion :

15
i t äpuldrjot have happened
toFrínme Heráh
a Contract

Tt was, after
all, a solemn
agreement of
marry years.
19
Above alljrimehleh
helpful arid Kind Aiter
his parents died, he
became the child d
the childless inPteke.

19
 In those years/this-wa^ said to h\in
often for he performed wany^any
qood deed£.

One d a y after a terrible attack,

the s u r v i v i n g elders summoned him.
The nextattack
FRIMM&L£M,WE uanje MAY VJlPE u£ out, $0
PUTT06ETMER ALL "MATS BEHAVE SELECT EP
LEFT OF OU£ MONEY TO YaUToSAN/EvFoRVJE
^EMPVOU To AMERICA. BEiLiEVE V0U ACE
FAMoR£P BY
eop/

20
 yoo WILL 60 WITH PO HOT WoRRV
SE6 LipshitiTo The North FglMAAELEH, 60P
THERE 16 A SEAPORT 16 \AlmWOLJ, Yflu
SWiLL SOTo AMEEiCA
nmHeee you cam buv
RIVSSAG&OMAftfiP/

. ..Arid. so J-Jersh obeyed, Two nightslaier

on the trail deep intyeforest...

2J
 And ,
Apt ï } î #
intbecold
fe

wote "
tl)e cariraà
on a ^ a l l

22
 And ynth the l i t t l e s W
tablet inhiepoctetFrimme
Her^h settled, in Hew
YorKCity Where he found
Shelter vq the H a ^ i d t t coimnimity
There he iooK religious ijistructiori
and devoted himself to qood -worte.

Faithfully and piously, b

adhered to the terms of hfe
contract -with <5op.

23
 In time he became a respected
member of the5ynagogue;trcj5ted
Witt) money and social matters,
go ituiae wt4urpri6in9that i t
vJa5 o/i Herd's doorstep thai an
anonymous mother abandoned
her infant g i r l What ¿ould.be
Clearer? ToFrimme^hi^wa^part
of his pact
With GOD.

2+
 Since noorjt wanted a child
born of GoP-KnoWS-vJbat Kind
of parents, Frimrne Her&b
adopted the baby })\rf]ielf.
He named her
Rachels after
hi4 mother and
devoted ^
himself to her 1
With an h #
So,she <3rew u p blossoming in
the "warmth and nourishment
of Frimme's gentle heart and
piouS "ways. jShevJasindeedfts
child and the joy of his years.
Ther) one day- in the Springtime
of her life-Rachek f e l l i l l .
$adder)Ty and f a t a l l y .
27
20
2?
. . . P I P I IÔNORË
E V E N ONE T I N Y
6ENTÊNCE-0R
P £ R H A P é A élNóLEr
COMMA 3
 dunn9 tlie days of
i mourning that followed the! ,
funeral .the rain fell 1 ,J

i "Without pause.
Friend^ came-each
offerii}9 Hersh the usual
"Words of comfort -which
he accepted in Storjy
silence,

3
 A U h e end of the days
of Shiva in tine daiMr) of the
eighth day,tlie eun rose in a
clear skY and Fringe Hersr,
said the rnpmin<3 prayer... -for
'the last time.

3+
 Tllei2...Mtl} deliberaron... he
Shaved off beards
 CA6M... £ 0 CANI
VOU LOAM M £ O N
7HE9E ?

AMPLË

epuiTyTte,
-Mß.HERSH,
VJE HAVÉ

37
"For ihe first
time.Frimme
Her^H lied. ,
For'the first
time^e
coininitted
an act wifidb
formerly ^jae>
unthir)kable-
Tfieborjd^ere
Hot fiie-
ilieyfiadorily
ieeii entrusted
toliiirifor
5afeKeepiI]<3
syr)acjocjue.
 Sb/Frimine Hersh) became
the r)eW o-Wner of 55"Dropsie
Avenue.
a
CD
/ou KNOW,MRHERSH- ^xia
* F R O M WHEN YOU WAS A TENANT

rtERe-I ALWAY^WITH
THE OWNER... I ' M A
L O V A L 5Up£R,'
 ion W I L L A L S O C U T
P^WMON 6T"£A/^M£AT
10% F£OM tiO\NOU THE
TiNANTS WfLL MAKE rMEIR

V J A N T TO K N O W F C O M
NO COMPLAINTS/

THESE JEW$

J
A POOR TEA/ANT,
TOPAS THE OWNER!
..HOW PoTHEV
P O IT ^)
 WitJjiT) ayeanFrimnie
Hersi) gleaned enough out
of tlie property to acquire the
ODeijext door.Witliir) tljenext
three ye arsyIie accumulated tie
b e g i r ^ i ^ of a real estate
empire.
HiS SUd^eSS
appeared to be a$ rnud] - , 60INC5
PuLL PoWN
TO
tfje result of urjcamiy
THE E L .
luck as aijytl]iT]c| else. NOW SOUR.
PROPERTY

REMEMBER
TKAT ôARBAôE
DUMP you WÉP£
WiTH LAST
NEAR.-MOW THÉ
CITY tT ? 0 R
A ôAWkâÉ.. JMey'LL
PAV WELL,'
 Before long he took a ixMmm
a ^ i k s e l f from ScraritoriA-/
and took up a lifestyle i\e
felt wore &?propria.te tohte
new station. r ; .
He traded building lite "toys.
But one building he never
Sold-thetenexneiyt o^DropsieAsfe.
At lea^t or\ce every week lie vtouLd
Comet}]ere--M$t iotooKatit.

.4-2
43
- « U f e AÍEVéR 6 0 NoWHeKE/FRJM.'
WMAT^NocF LIFE H&THIS ?-SOWRG
L Ö R I C K VOUCAMBUV ANVTH/Me
VOÜ WAMr„5£7,BU^ IT/-'
 One eVefiiı^FrtmfyeHersh
vJalKed from W& peï)tt)oU$e
uptown âlltfavJàyto
the old f T i i f f c

*6
 Carefully HeráJ) reco\ir)ted ihe
history of Sa former centrad:.
4?
 I F Y O U WILL HELP ME lNTW6,I
WILL A L S O P O N A T E TOTHE 5 Y N A 6 0 6 U E
T H * TENEMENT AT55 P * O P 5 I E AVENUE
—7^||6 WILL PROViPE A &OOD

AnoL ^o the three old iner) pondered.

tTie request.

WHAT RIGHT ^. O N THE OTHER MANP, I F NOT

HAVEWE To US - M W THEM ? A R E WE NOT
1

g>E A pARTV AFTERALL LEAGKEP IN

TOTH16... THE IASN5 0 F 6 0 P ??
1.

51
 iS NOT ALL RELIGION A
CONTRACT BETWEEN M A N
- AND GOD?
 $o IT] \}\e day4 ttjti followed,
Sp elders toiled,interrupted,
only by i | | Saibatt) aijd certain
days of prayer-At last they presented
tile docuiriei7t toHersli-
A l l that AT LA'aT-X
rii^ht Hersf) HAVE A
sat readiijcj 6£NUlME
CONTRACT
the coijtratft.
eoof
j4^aiT? and
agair}..,T]e
studied every
-Word "Wit}]
great care.
It Wae ioiu-
fide ,
55
 TH/èfiME.You
WiLL HoT\¡iOLtfó
OUR CONTRACT

56
A t the exact
foment of
Herd's ladt

earthly

bolt of
StrudK
tîıe city...
Wot â drop
of mir)
fell....
VJir)d
swirled
about the
ter)elriei)ts.

57
 Oıı Dropsie avenue tfcoid
terieirierite $eerr\ed to tremble
ír)tf]e6tonr). It r e d d e d mm
Vft)en frirnrne Hersh argued
vJitlıöOP andieriniriated
their corytract.

58
Around JTlidmgbifire^
started oi] the roof of
a Vropsie Avenue terieiyient.
500*7 ttje fla^e^, spreading
quickly consumed all the
old "ouildiri^S oDfhe
Street
A l l — except orje/
Miraculously the tenement
at55prop£ie avenue
•was unmanned.
Ai]d it happened that a toy
tl)e hero of th^ day
 New Boy
A n d bedauee p]e"Wa^
5o different lie became
the object of ipuc^
buliyiricj. Or\e day not
lor^ after the fire he
^ s t r a p p e d in the
alley of number 55
Toy three faulty
 ..Ayd ÍWevewré Miß sioop
oj the wmmxäßütäm
hi* W l Ä T O
Fnırırr]eHer5j 1 ...tîıereby enteiïnd
 Turing the early1930$,
at the fept}) of ihe Great
Depression,there appeared
irj*Die alleys of the
tdnerpeifc, STREET p!N£i£R£,
Tliese warideririg 4keet
rniT)etrele ^aricj popular
5oi^&anclste^inents cf
operatic arias wtocb
in tje acoustic* of ttie
Place/Sounded
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e WILL EISNER LIBRARY
FROM DC COMICS

The Building
City People Notebook
A Contract With God
The Dreamer
Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood
Family Matter
In visible People
A Life Force
Life on Another Planet
New York, the Big City
To the Heart of the Storm
Will Eisner Reader

the SPIRIT ARCHIVES

FROM DC COMICS
Will Eisners T h e S p i r i t
collected in chronological order
in full-color, hardcover editions

ALSO BY WILL EISNER

Comics and Sequential Art
Graphic Storytelling
 dù°il\ &SHBK

Will Eisner's career spans the entire history of

comic books from the formative days of the
1930s, through the 1940s when he revo-
lutionized narrative sequential art with his
internationally famed series, The Spirit, to
his mature work which, beginning i n the
1970s, led the field in the creation of the con¬
temporary graphic novel form. In addition to
his award-winning graphic novels, he is die
author of the influential study Comics and
Sequential Art.

If you'd like to learn more about Will Eisner,

visit his website at www.willeisner.com.
THE FIRST
GRAPHIC
NOVEL

A Contract With God [is] the

collection of realistic illustrated
stories with which Eisner put
himself again in the vanguard of
the new wave of comics . . . the
latest installments in one of the
most distinctive bodies of work
in comics, and indeed any narra-
tive literature,
—The Guardian (London!

Will Eisner is the heart and mind

of American comics.
—Scott McCloud, author of
Understanding Comics

Drawing on his memories

of growing up in New York
in the 1930s, Will Eisner
has depicted the Jives and
dreams of the residents of
a Bronx tenement in this
first work in a new medium,
the graphic novel. The famed
creator of The Spirit in the
1940s, Eisner has revolution-
ized sequential art with the
series of novels that began
with A Contract With God.