On The Bookshelf
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FAZ2 I N
`For The Relief Of
Unbearable Urges
Out with his first book and comparisons to
Roth, Singer and Malamud, Nathan Englander
is the Jewish writer of the moment.
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4 / 30
1999
92 Detroit Jewish News
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the stuff writers dream of. The 29-
year-old, whose name was unknown
not long ago, has been published in
The New Yorker and reviewed enthusi-
hile in the back seat of a
astically
by major newspapers and
Manhattan taxicab,
magazines.
He is reported to have
Charles Luger, a
received an advance of more than
Protestant financial ana-
$200,000 for the collection of stories
lyst, discovers that he's suddenly
and a novel. As seems inevitable when
become Jewish, in Nathan Englander's
a promising Jewish writer emerges, he
story, "The Gilgul of Park Avenue.
has been compared to Philip Roth,
"Jewish, here in the back," he tells
Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard
the driver, who reacts to the sudden
Malamud. While he shares their story
reincarnation of the man's soul with
telling talent, his voice
the smugness of a New
Above:
Nathan
Englander
is distinctive.
York cabby who's seen
left the Orthodox fold, but
Englander's stories
everything, twice.
he says, "I don't know how are artfully written,
The story of Luger's
many religious people spend with grace and humor
transformation is one of
as much time wrestlin g
nine stories in Englander's with Jewish issues as I do." and narrative power.
Most are set in Royal
first book, For the Relief of
Hills, a neighborhood
Unbearable Urges (Knopf;
that
resembles
Borough Park, and
$22), just published to much acclaim.
Jerusalem;
these
are places where reli-
The first story, "The Twenty-seventh
gion dominates daily life, and the sec-
Man" takes place in Stalinist Russia,
ular world is never far away.
when a group of leading Jewish writers
The title story, "For The Relief of
are arrested, along with one aspiring
Unbearable
Urges," is about an
writer who finally finds literary recog-
Orthodox
man
who gets special
nition as one of the condemned.
pensation
from
his rebbe to visit a
The other stories are peopled with
prostitute,
as
a
way
of saving his mar-
Chasidim and Orthodox Jews, the
riage
when
his
wife
refuses to sleep
kind of people who'd be quite sur-
with him. In "Reb Kringle," a Chasidi
prised to find their lives and passions
man reluctantly goes along with his
portrayed in fiction.
wife's
idea that he get seasonal work as
Englander's fairytale-like debut is
a department store Santa Claus, with
Sandee Brawarsky is a New York-
his authentic long, white beard.
based Jewish book critic.
SAN DEE B RAWARS KY
Special to The Jewish News
"
-
c/
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