I almost never connect with short story collections the way I do with novels, but these stories really stood out to me. Englander consistently probes similar themes--Jewish identities in the United States, the meaning and the future of Israel, Jewish assimilation, the tension between cultural and...
This book of short stories is about tradition, obligation, and external sources as meaning to our lives. I've been thinking about choices made under the umbrella of the first two, and personal responsibility for the last, and realize how many of our major decisions to marry, to follow in a well-w...
The rabbi’s got thirteen kids and that’s the smell. The constant cycling of daily needs. Someone always eating or shitting, putting on socks or taking them off. But it’s not white like on the ward. Not sterile and faked. It’s real life over there with the smells that go with it.Marty is saying th...
Dr. Mazursky said. “Look at the face on you.” Mazursky had followed his maid into his office, spouting a steady stream of curses and with his robe hanging open. He was about to start in on Kaddish as well, when he’d set eyes on him. “This is why I get up in the mornings; this is why I do the work...
The bell at the public school still rings through the weekend, and the bushes behind the lot where we played hockey still stand. The only difference is that the sharp screws and jagged edges of the jungle gym are gone, the playground stripped of all adventure, sissified and padded and covered wit...