IS EVERYBODY READY?

ROBERT URICH JOINS THE COMPANY

Wrestling With
Judaism

Budding author Nathan Englander spins tales
about self-understanding
and captures
the imagination of readers, young and old.

Even Newsweek devoted a full page
to Englander, to the six-figure
advance he received and the stories
"more compassionate than cold."
Some are also humorous.and others
are sad.
A native of New York and a gradu-
ate of a high school yeshiva,
Englander has put the Orthodoxy of
his parents aside and lives a secular
life in Jerusalem. But his stories
depict Jews who wrestle with Judaism
from within their communities, not

ARI ELLA PALMER
Special to the Jewish News

Chicago

THE MUS

NANA VISITOR

VICKI LEWIS

ROBERT URICH

TICKETS ON SALE TODAY!

CALL TICKETMASTER (248) 645-6666

Tickets also on sale at the box office and all Ticketmaster outlets.
Groups (20 or more): (313) 871-1132 (M-F 10am - 4:30pm)

MASONIC TEMPLE THEATRE NOVEMBER 16-28 ONLY!

Grammy Award-Winning cast recording on RCA Victor. Visit our website at www.chicagothemusical.com

AND DANCING CAT PRODUCTIONS PRESENT

6e0 e W1

piston

A SOLO PIANO CONCERT

Michigan Theater

ANN ARBOR

Thursday, November 11 7:30 pm

T

o the tittering 20-some-
things waiting for him to
sign their books, Nathan
Englander — wearing car-
penter jeans and a white V-neck
sweater — is a handsome young man
with an engaging smile and a self-
effacing manner. He seems genuinely
surprised
that people
want their
books per-
sonalized,
not just
auto-
graphed.
With mis-
chief in his
brown eyes,
he turns to
the book-
store owner
and says,
"I'm going
Its hard to miss
to ask
Nathan Englanders
[other]
thick, shoulder-length
authors to
mass of dark curls.
sign my
But it his alternately
books, To
tragic, finny and
i2y
my best
fancifil tales that
Nathan Enolandea;
truly make him
friend
stand out in a crowd
Nathan.'"'
The 29-
year-old author of For the Relief of
outside them.
Unbearable Urges (Alfred A. Knopf;
Ruchama the wig-maker knows the
S22)) is clearly enjoying his newfound
latest hair styles through fashion mag-
fame. Time Out magazine named him
azines "page by page: The magazines
one of the eight authors to watch in
are contraband in Royal Hills, nar-
1999 — long before his book even hit
ishkeit, vain and immodest, practically
the stores.
pornographic. But she needs to keep
The young women, who listened
up.
raptly to him reading, share the same
Five of Englander's nine stories are
awe as critics who have found
set in ultra-Orthodox communities.
Englander's stories to be "artfully
His characters aren't trying to exit
written, with humor and narrative
from their identities so much as wres-
power"; "graceful and remarkably self-
tle with their realities and come to
assured" and _"taut, edgy and sharply
terms.
observed."
In "The Gilgul of Park Avenue," a

Fo r

Relief

nbearable

•

Reserved tickets at $31, 525 and $1950 available

Available at the Michigan Union Ticket Office
and all TicketMaster outlets

INFO AND CHARGE BY PHONE
734-763-TKTS oR 248-645-6666

Arbor Haven and the
Salvation Army will be holding a
food drive at the concert;
please join us in support by bringing
a donation of non-perishable canned
food to the show

/29

featuring songs from the new Cl) Mains -
now available at your local music store

99

Detroit Jewish News