Kantika and Take What You Need
July 7, 2023 9:14 pm Leave your thoughtsI’m not proud of it, but I initially resisted picking up Elizabeth Graver’s Kantika, released in April, because it was giving... View Article
Author Archives for jnal2001
Milwaukee Blues
May 5, 2023 9:16 pm Leave your thoughtsPart of what it means to be an American, lately, is to be a subject of curiosity and concern for... View Article
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
December 16, 2022 9:18 pm Leave your thoughtsGabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has done just fine for itself, thank you: Since it was published in July,... View Article
Either/Or
December 2, 2022 9:20 pm Leave your thoughtsThough I’ve read Elif Batuman’s novel Either/Or, which recently made The New York Times’ “Notable Books” list for 2022, I can’t tell you... View Article
Books of Sarah
May 18, 2022 9:22 am Leave your thoughts[Professor and literary critic Josh Lambert serves as a judge for two major prizes for American Jewish literature, meaning he reads as many... View Article
Jews with Money
July 15, 2021 3:31 pm Leave your thoughtsADAM WILSON’S RECENT NOVEL Sensation Machines takes place in a near-future America much like ours, only a little more so. Congress is... View Article
The Jewish Jane Austen Whose Novels Were Almost Forgotten
April 26, 2021 3:34 pm Leave your thoughtsEmma Wolf was a witty, warm and acclaimed novelist-of-manners who wrote at the dawn of the twentieth century. She was... View Article
From Kafka to Kushner, Touring the 20th Century’s Jewish Canon
October 6, 2020 3:42 pm Leave your thoughtsTHE BLESSING AND THE CURSE The Jewish People and Their Books in the Twentieth Century By Adam Kirsch “To be... View Article
Who Speaks in the Jewish Novel?
May 25, 2020 3:30 pm Leave your thoughtsIT’S AWARD SEASON NOW in the world of contemporary Jewish literature. You probably didn’t know this, and not just because the... View Article
A Divorce Story, from Both Sides
June 19, 2019 3:28 pm Leave your thoughtsDiscussed in this essay: Fleishman Is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Random House, 2019. 384 pages. MARRIAGE AND ITS DISCONTENTS have always been... View Article