Arts & Entertainment

ON THE COVER

FICTION from page B7

into an endless film; in the process, Gillis
explores the complexities of survival and
choice in a world on the verge of going mad.

The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn

by Irene Dische (Farrar, Straus and Giroux;
$24): In this autobiographical novel about
class, sex, religion and cultural and genera-
tional clashes, the author channels the mem-
oir of her own grandmother, an aristocratic,
anti-Semitic German woman who saved her
Jewish husband from the Nazis and ended
up as a poor refugee in New Jersey.

Mantes, in Montclair: How a Happily
Married Woman Became a Widow Looking
for Love in the Wilds of Suburbia

by Amy Holman Edelman (Shaye Areheart
Books; $22): This fictionalized account
based on the life of the author, who was sud-
denly widowed at 43, shows how one woman
rediscovers who she is while stepping into
the murky waters of 21st-century dating.

by Merrill Joan Gerber (Syracuse University
Press; $24.95; paperback): Gerber's newest
novel illuminates the lives of three genera-
tions of women belonging to a Jewish family
in New York — sisters Rachel and Rose, who
travel from Poland to their fates on the Lower
East Side; Rachel's daughters, Ava, Musetta
and Gilda, whose destiny is influenced by two
world wars; and Musetta's daughters, Issa
and Iris, who carry the story to its poignant
conclusion at the end of World War II.

during the reign of Herod — and gives her
a voice, offering an alternative story to the
one found in the New Testament.

Day of Atonement

by Michael Gregorio (St. Martin's Press;
$24.95): In a historical novel set in Prussia
under Napoleonic rule, the townspeople seek
a scapegoat among the Jews after a murder
is committed.

Mary of Nazareth

by Marek Halter (Crown; $24): The Polish born
author of the trilogy Sarah, Zipporah, Wife of
Moses and Lilah, an escapee with his par-
ents from the Warsaw Ghetto, writes a novel
about the mother of Jesus, a young Jewish
woman named Miriam living in Nazareth

by Marek Halter (Toby Press; $24.95):
Another novel by Harek (newly translated
into English), this tale — based in truth — tells
the story of the little-known crusade by a
16th-century Jew to marshal support for a
Jewish state, four centuries before the cre-
ation of modern-day Israel.

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Temporary People: A Fable

by Steven Gillis (Black Lawrence Press;
$20.95): The Ann Arbor-based author writes
a satirical political fable about an ex-TV star
who seizes power and tries to turn daily life

Bearing The Body

by Ehud Havazelet (Farrar, Straus and Giroux;
$24): In this first novel from the acclaimed
short-story writer, the past wrecks the male
members of the Mirsky family in different
ways, and a family drama arises after the
death of its eldest son.

The Triumph of Deborah

by Eva Etzioni-Halevi (Plume; $14; paper-
back): In her new book, the author of fiction
based on the biblical stories of Ruth and
Hannah captures the strength and inde-
pendence of the warrior Deborah in ancient
Israel, in many ways drawing parallels to the
struggles of modern-day female leaders.

by Robert Fenton (BookLocker.com ; $31.95):
In a tale covering nearly a quarter century,
this Metro Detroit author writes about three
Prohibition-era New York Jewish mobsters
who build an empire on illegal booze, change
the direction of the liquor industry and
decades later become some of the country's
most successful and respected citizens.

Love Falls
by Esther Freud (Ecco; $13.95; paperback):
The great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud
and daughter of the painter Lucien Freud
evokes a young girl's romantic and sexual
awakening on a holiday to Tuscany as she
learns more about her reclusive father, a
renowned historian who fled Nazi Germany
as a child.

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The German Bride

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Fear and Yoga in New Jersey

by Debra Gallant (St. Martin's; $23.95): This
suburban family satire centers around a
stressed-out yoga teacher facing the loss of
her husband's job, the return of her parents
from Florida and her son's sudden interest in
having a bar mitzvah.

B10

June 26 • 2008

by Joanna Hershon (Ballantine Books; $25):
This gritty portrayal of urban European
Jewish immigrants struggling with New
World frontier life in the mid-19th century
focuses on a young woman beset my memo-
ries of her former life.

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Three Wise Men

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by Alice Hoffman (Shaye Areheart; $25): In
a novel retaining elements of the author's
trademark fairytale style, love, heartbreak,
tragedy and redemption infuse a triptych
of catastrophic love stories set in London in
different decades but tied together in devas-
tating retrospective.

The Genius

Atmospheric Disturbances

by Rivka Galchen (Farrar, Straus & Giroux;
$24): In her debut novel — a love story, psy-
chological thriller and dark comedy rolled
into one — the author, an M.D, features a
psychiatrist narrator whose wife disappears;
the only clue she leaves behind is a woman
who looks and behaves exactly like her.

by Julie Hecht (Simon & Schuster; $24): In
seven interrelated stories, Hecht's heroine-
narrator — a slightly neurotic but always
curious vegan photographer who relies on
herbal remedies and Xanax — tries to hold
it all together in the face of civilization's
decline.

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by Jesse Kellerman (G.P. Putnam's Sons;
$24.95): In a re-imagining of the modern
detective novel, the son of best-selling
authors Faye and Jonathan gives us his take
on the New York City art world in a murder
mystery that probes the fine line between
genius and insanity.

The Girl on the WOK

by Etgar Keret (Farrar, Straus & Giroux;
$12): Translated from the Hebrew by Miriam
Schlesinger and Sondra Silverston, this
selection of best short stories from the
celebrated Israeli author's first collections
represents his signature blend of compel-
ling strangeness and daring humor — tales
include those about a birthday-party magi-
cian whose hat tricks end in horror and gore;

