Village stories that deftly lift a curtain on a world of friendly humor and touching details of Jewish life.
A novel set in a small Jewish village chronicles an unlikely romance.
This latest book from Binder (The Zombie Cat, 2017, etc.) continues his stories about the village of Chelm “on the edge of the Black Forest, in a part of the world that was sometimes Poland, sometimes Russia, briefly Austria, and maybe Germany.” The author has related the fictional goings-on in this little village in five works. This sixth installment centers on the wisest man in Chelm, Rabbi Kibbitz, and an unexpected late-in-life romance he enjoys. The book opens with a note of hyperbolic wry humor that skillfully captures the tone of the whole volume. The good rabbi is officiating at the wedding of a young couple who have succumbed to the temptation to write their own vows. As those vows drone on and on, various members of the congregation drift off to sleep. When the couple are finally done with their pledges and married, they’re frozen in place. “They both made so many vows to each other,” Rabbi Kibbitz explains, “that they can’t move for fear of breaking their promises.” One of the most surprising marriages in the village turns out to be the rabbi’s own. He weds Mrs. Chaipul, “owner and operator of Chelm’s sole kosher restaurant, the village’s chief caterer, and the best wedding planner” within four days’ ride. She insists on being called Mrs. Chaipul even after their marriage (her first husband’s last name was Klammerdinger, so she’s a bit skittish). Their union is a happy one, gently and wonderfully portrayed by Binder. The slim book’s descriptions of small-town Jewish life glow with affection, including Rabbi Kibbitz’s irritation concerning his obligation to eat his wife’s tough-as-nails matzah balls (“After five minutes your jaws began to ache, and the villagers started to wonder whether Mrs. Chaipul’s family had all died of starvation or lockjaw”). In all of these engaging tales, the jokes and human pathos are expertly balanced.
Village stories that deftly lift a curtain on a world of friendly humor and touching details of Jewish life.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-940060-29-3
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Light Publications
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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