Dara Horn’s third novel combines her trademark cleverness, depth of Jewish knowledge, and strong literary sensibility into a fast-paced adventure-intrigue in which Jewish characters make a significant difference in the American Civil War. Jacob Rappaport, the 19-year-old son of a New York industrialist, joins the Union Army rather than accept the poor match his father,…
Tag: American
Going Gentle Into That Good Night
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The Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley, were the stuff of urban legend. A couple of eccentrics, they lived in a grand Fifth Avenue brownstone left to them by their parents who died when the boys were young adults. Langley, wounded by mustard gas in the First Great War, became a classic hoarder of junk from…
Harry Bernstein’s ‘Invisible Wall’
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Harry Bernstein was 96 years old when his memoir, “The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers,” was published to great critical acclaim two years ago. Last year he followed up his success with a second memoir, “The Dream,” which similarly has attracted much favourable attention and legions of readers. This year, at 98,…
On Graphic Novels
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So many books, so little time. It was in the year 1859 that British literary critic David Masson noted that something astounding was happening to English literature. Two novels were being published in London each week, Masson observed, making it impossible for readers to keep up with the entirety of modern fiction. Henceforth, each person…
On Jewish Memoirs and Autobiography
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On the several occasions when I’ve enrolled in creative-writing or memoir-writing workshops, usually with the aim of finishing a particular story that I’ve written, I’ve always been struck by the wealth of literary talent seated around the table. This has generally come as a pleasant surprise, since I’ve also observed that few people possess the…
Stern’s Frozen Rabbi
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Fifteen-year-old Bernard Karp finds a strange heirloom in the food freezer in the basement of his family’s suburban Memphis home: a greenish block of ice containing a frozen rabbi, a Jewish Rip van Winkle lying in peaceful repose as if flash-frozen in the midst of a relaxing afternoon shluff. Confronted at the dinner table, Bernie’s…
There Is No Other
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There Is No Other (Exile Editions) offers a collection of compelling stories by former Torontonian Jonathan Papernick (now of Boston), in which we meet a caretaker who has a vision of the Virgin Mary in a Reform Temple in Boston; an angry Jewish kid who comes to a school Purim party wearing a Mohammed costume…
The End of the Jews: Novel
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Like David Homel’s Midway, The End of the Jews by Adam Mansbach is a witty literary miniature with Jewish characters. Published in 2008, it tells the story of three interlocking characters — a grandfather and grandson both named Tristan Brodsky, and Nina Hricek, a teenaged photographer in Czechoslovakia. The narrative unfolds in the present tense…
Neil Simon memoir
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If the word “bittersweet” has often been associated with phenomenal American playwright Neil Simon, one need only read his recent memoir Rewrites (Simon & Schuster, 1997) to understand why. In it, he shares a string of typically good-humored tales of his quick ascent up the ladder of theatrical success, from his days of writing for television…
Emma Lazarus bio
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Emma Lazarus, who died 120 years ago at the premature age of only 38, fixed her place in American literary history through her poem “The New Colossus,” which famously graces a bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Some of its stanzas are too well known to bear repeating even today, but,…
