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Our annual roundup of recent books by Jewish authors.
Nicole Goodman
Special to the Jewish News
`Ficti ► n
A
uthor Helene Wecker weaves
strands of folk mythology, his-
torical fiction and magical fable
in her debut novel, The Golem and the
Jinni (Harper), blending the supernatural
with the classic questions of what makes
us human. An accidental meeting leads
to a strong bond between Chava, a golem
(creature made of clay) brought to life by
an odd man who dabbles in dark kab-
balistic magic, and Ahmad, a jinni born
of fire in the ancient Syrian desert and
accidentally released in a shop in Lower
Manhattan. Two outsiders in 1899 New
York, Chava and Ahmad both struggle to
find their way in this strange new land,
a melting pot of different cultures and
people. Though brought together and torn
apart, Chava and Ahmed come together
once again when a powerful menace
threatens their existence.
The Liars' Gospel (Little, Brown and
Company), the newest novel by Naomi
Alderman, tells the story of a Jewish man
in Roman-occupied Judea in the first cen-
tury. Yehoshuah, or Jesus, as he is more
commonly known today, is remembered a
year after his death — before he became the
religious figure associated with Christianity
— through retellings of four people close
to him: Miryam (Mary, his mother), Qeriot
(Judas Iscariot, Yehoshuah's best friend),
Caiaphas (the Jewish high priest) and Bar-
Avo (Barrabas, the insurrectionist freed by
Pontius Pilate at Passover instead of Jesus).
Alderman, who won the Orange Award
for New Writers, reimagines the story of
Yehoshuah through a lens of the era, and
one of the interesting things about the book
is her decision to use the Hebrew versions
of all the characters' names, making his-
torical and political first-century Judea the
novel's focus.
Irene Nemirovsky, who died in
Auschwitz in 1942, is best known for her
novel Suite Francaise, which was pub-
lished posthumously for the first time
in 2006. Now, yet another Nemirovsky
novel, translated from French by Sandra
Smith, has been published: The Wine of
Solitude (Vintage). The most autobio-
graphical of all the novels Nemirovsky
wrote, it explores the difficult relation-
ship between future writer Helene Karol
and her distant and regal mother. The
novel is set against the backdrop of World
War I and the Russian Revolution before
moving on to Paris, where Helene pro-
gresses from an unhappy, dreamy child to
a hardened, strong-willed young woman.
In Sunlight and In Shadow (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt), Mark Helprin's new-
est novel, follows Jewish World War II vet
Harry Copeland as he returns to post-war
New York City and finds the love of his
life. For Harry and Catherine Thomas
Hale, a singer and heiress, it is love at
first sight, and the novel enchants with its
portrayal of their love. Meanwhile, Harry
struggles to keep his family's leather-
goods company running in the wake of
his father's death. What also draws read-
ers in, with stunning scenic descriptions
and a romanticized view of the city, is
Helprin's love letter to New York in the
1940s.
One Last Thing Before I Go (Dutton)
by Jonathan Tropper is a novel of fam-
ily and family bonds, which often are
fraught with regrets and resentments.
At 44 years old, Drew Silver is at a low
point in his life. He is living alone in an
efficiency hotel off the freeway, surviving
off royalty checks from his once-famous
band's only hit song. Denise, his ex-wife,
is preparing to marry a man too good
for Drew to hate, and his 18-year-old
Princeton-bound daughter, Casey, con-
fides in him about her pregnancy since
she cares least about letting him down.
When Drew discovers he needs emer-
gency heart surgery to live, he decides to
forgo it in favor of making the most of
the days he has left. Three of Tropper's
books, including this one, are getting the
Hollywood treatment.
Maggie Anton, the author of the
Rashi's Daughters trilogy, is back
with Ray Hisda's Daughter: Book I:
Apprentice (Plume). "A novel of love, the
Talmud and sorcery," this is the story of
Hisdadukh, the daughter of talmudic sage
Rav Hisda, in third-century Babylonia,
after the destruction of Jerusalem's Holy
Temple. As Babylonia is caught up in the
struggle for dominance between Rome
and Persia, and the Jews try to rediscover
their identity after the Temple's destruc-
tion, Hisdadukh comes of age to marry
and embarks on becoming a charasheta,
an enchantress. The novel, beyond giv-
ing the reader a view of third-century
Babylonia through the eyes of a woman,
provides a story of love and religion, with
a little bit of magic.
The idea of what constitutes a family
is put to the test in Michael Lowenthal's
new novel, The Paternity Test (Terrace
Books), which explores surrogate mother-
hood and gay parenting. Stu and Pat, his
partner, want to have a baby. Through an
online surrogacy test, they find Debora, a
Brazilian woman with whom Pat quickly
bonds. This is where their story comes
apart. Stu, whose father is a Holocaust
survivor, wants to continue his family's
line; in deciding to have a child in an
unconventional way, Stu deals with back-
lash from religious relatives. Meanwhile,
Pat longs for a family separate from his old
one — to raise a child, not necessarily to
father one. Caught up in their doubts and
hesitations, Pat and Stu unravel as they try
to agree on the definition of a family.
Is This Tomorrow (Algonquin) by
Caroline Leavitt is a study of 1950s and
1960s suburbia. Ava, a Jewish divorcee,
moves to a Boston suburb with her son,
12-year-Lewis, who still yearns for his
absent father despite his mother's devo-
tion. Ostracized as a member of the only
Jewish family in town, as well as for being
the son of a single, working mother, Lewis
befriends Jimmy and Rose, two father-
less children. Jimmy and Lewis become
best friends, and then Jimmy disappears,
leaving behind an unsolved mystery and
a hole in Lewis' heart. When the mystery
of Jimmy is re-opened years later, an adult
Rose, now a schoolteacher, and Lewis, now
estranged from his mother, are forced to
work together to re-examine the past and
learn whether to hurt the ones they love or
let secrets remain buried.
Jacob Cerf, an 18th-century Jew and
peddler in Paris, dies at the age of 31
in 1773. When he "wakes up:' he finds
himself a fly in the Long Island suburbs
of 21st-century America. With the ability
to read minds and travel through others'
memories, he sets off to change the life of
a reliable volunteer fireman and a young
Orthodox Jewish woman nursing secret
ambitions. In Jacob's Folly (Farrar, Straus
and Giroux), Rebecca Miller, daughter
of playwright Arthur Miller and wife of
actor Daniel Day-Lewis, works to explore
change —personal, spiritual, literal.
With surprising wit, the story is woven
together by flashbacks of Jacob's life and
the lives he is influencing as a fly, leading
to an intriguing tale.
Summer Reading on page 50
June 27 • 2013
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