30 June 20 • 2019
jn

SANDEE BRAWARSKY SUMMER READING

books
arts&life

Our annual compilation of new books offers 
everything from page-turners to politics — 
all with a Jewish connection.

THE 
GOSPEL 
ACCORDI
NG 
TO 
LAZARUS

RI
CHARD
ZI
MLER

G 

RI
CHARD
ZI
MLER

‘
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A brave and engaging novel . . . a page-turner’
 Observer

 
The Gospel According to Lazarus
by Richard Zimler (Peter Owen 
Publishing/IPG) is an imaginative 
retelling of how Jesus brought his 
friend Lazarus back from the dead 
and then how Lazarus struggles to 
regain his previous identity, flash-
ing back to the boyhood and close 
friendship of the two in Nazareth. The 
novel recounts the story of the last 
week of the life of Jesus, through the 
perspective of Lazarus. Zimler, who 
lives in Portugal and is the author of 
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and other 
novels, brings mysticism and historical 
research to his telling. 
In celebration of the matriarch’s 
70th birthday, the extended Feldman 
family take a cruise together in The 
Floating Feldmans by Elyssa Freidland 
(Berkley). Not exactly a celebration, the 
time sequestered together afloat on the 
Ocean Queen is filled with eating and 
feuding, as family secrets, rivalries and 
tensions surface. In alternating voices, 
the story unfolds with compassion and 
humor.
A first novel set in 1666 by an author 
who has published acclaimed short 

stories, The Organs of Sense by Adam 
Ehrlich Sachs (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) 
explores science, politics and family 
dynamics, layered with philosophy, his-
torical facts and humor. Here a blind 
astronomer using the longest telescope 
ever built, encounters the young math 
genius Gottfried Leibniz, just before 
the predicted time of a solar eclipse 
said to result in total darkness. 
Death and Other Happy Endings
(Pamela Dorman Books/Viking) is 
the fictional debut of 62-year-old 
author Melanie Cantor, who previous-
ly worked as a celebrity press agent 
before hosting a television series on 
home design in Great Britain. In this 
romantic comedy, a woman who is 
told she has a terminal illness with 
three months to live sets out to put her 
affairs in order with unusual candor 
through letters to her ex-husband, 
ex-boyfriend and difficult sister. 
The Song of the Jade Lily by 
Australian writer Kirsty Manning 
(Morrow) is a historical novel that 
opens in Shanghai in 1944, flashes back 
to Vienna and Australia in 1938, and 
then ahead to London in 2016, and 

then back to Australia and Shanghai 
as well. This is a story of refugees, 
friendship, hardship, love, loyalty 
and courage that recreates wartime 
Shanghai and its Jewish refugee com-
munity.
Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage is 
a collection of stories by rediscovered 
literary voice Bette Rowland (Public 
Space), who received many awards 
decades ago and then largely disap-
peared from public notice until the end 
of her life. Rowland, born in Chicago 
and championed by Saul Bellow, who 
was for a time a lover, observes life 
with empathy and humor, in the tradi-
tion of Grace Paley. 
 
Set in a weight loss camp for adults 
in a Vermont mansion, Waisted by 
Randy Susan Meyers (Atria Books) 
tells of a group of women determined 
to lose extra pounds who agree to be 
filmed as they take part in a program 
promising dramatic results. This is a 
story of sisterhood and self-respect as 
the women conspire against those in 
charge. 
Julie Zuckerman’s debut, The Book 
of Jeremiah (Press 53), a novel in 

stories full of rich imagery, spans the 
life of a regular guy named Jeremiah 
— son of Jewish immigrants, professor 
of political science, husband, father 
— over eight decades, showing his 
determination, missteps and inspiring 
humanity. 
A first novel set over three conti-
nents and spanning four generations, 
The Limits of the World by Jennifer 
Acker (Delphinium Books) is the story 
of an American family, emigrants from 
the Indian enclave in Nairobi. The 
family has many secrets when they 
are forced to return to Nairobi by an 
unforeseen accident. One of the secrets 
is that their son’s Jewish-American 
girlfriend, who is with them in Kenya, 
is already his wife. As she unfolds this 
family saga, Acker, founder and editor-
in-chief of The Common, considers 
family ties, cultural misunderstandings, 
immigration, empathy and love. 
 
A first novel of historical fiction, 
A Bend in the Stars by Rachel 
Barenbaum (Grand Central 
Publishing) opens in 1914 Russia as 
war is in the air and life is increas-
ingly difficult for Jews. A pair of sib-

FICTION

