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Novels and Fiction
(click on a listing for more information, to see the cover art, or to purchase it)

By the way, Anita Diamant has written a new novel, titled "GOOD HARBER" This October 2001 book from Scribners . See Below:

GOOD HARBOR
A novel by Anita Diamant.
October 2001. Scribners. A novel. Kathleen, a Jew by choice (born Catholic) and Joyce, a secular Jew, befriend each other in their middle age; they meet in a synagogue in Gloucester and go for walks and talks along the beach. Kathleen, 59, is facing a struggle with breast cancer and radiation treatment (a disease that killed her sister), while Joyce, 42, is having a crisis as her 12 year old daughter rebels and her husband grows distant.

OLD MEN AT MIDNIGHT
By CHAIM POTOK
October 2001. Knopf. 304 pages, Chaim Potok, the master of the fictional clashes between cultures (My Name is Asher Lev, The Chosen, Wanderings), JTS Grad, and celebrated author, has written thee three related novellas about one woman who touches the lives of three men. Ilana Davita Dinn is the listener to whom three men relate their lives. In the first story, as a young girl, she listens to the story of the Ark Builder, a man who builds torah arks for synagogues and what happened when the Nazis invade his Polish town. In the next story, she is a newly minted teacher, and reads the story of a KGB agent who as a young man during the Russian Civil War is saved by a doctor who he later meets during the Kremlin doctors' plot. In the third story, she is a famous writer and neighbor to a distinguiches professor of military warfare who is trying to write his memoirs who gets distracted by her presence and the illness of his wife.

THE SAME SEA.
By Amos OZ, translated by Nicholas De Lange
October 2001. A POETIC novel about mortality, and a time to make peace, and more. Albert, an accountant has been made a widower when his wife, Nadia, passes away. Their son, Rico, has gone off to Bangladesh, Tibet, and places in the East, where his mother visits him in visions. An elderly widow is interested in Albert, but Albert desires Dita, the young girlfriend of his absent son; she has moved in with Albert in Rico's absence. Click to read more

AUSTERLITZ.
a novel
By W.G. SEBALD, translated from German (Rings of Saturn; The Emigrants)
October 2001, Random House. Austerlitz... what kind of name is that? Isn't it the name of a train staion? Maybe it is close to the name of Auschwitz? Hmm..., this is a scholarly novel about a character named Jacques Austerlitz. Halfway through the book, the depressed Austerlitz, who was raised in a stoic Welsh family (with a name of Jacques??), discovers that he was actually born to joy filled Prague Jews. His mother was killed by the Nazis, and his father might be living somewhere in Paris. Jacques was saved by sending him to England. A uniquely crafted story by a writer with a growing cult readership. Wer ist Austerlitz? Ein rätselhafter Fremder, der immer wieder an den ungewöhnlichsten Orten auftaucht: am Bahnhof, am Handschuhmarkt, im Industriequartier ... Und jedes Mal erzählt er ein Stück mehr von seiner Lebensgeschichte, der Geschichte eines unermüdlichen Wanderers durch unsere Kultur und Architektur und der Geschichte eines Mannes, dem als Kind Heimat, Sprache und Name geraubt wurden.

GOOD IN BED.
by Jennifer Weiner
Move over Bridget. This is the story of Jewish single life in America. Cannie Shapiro, a zaftig Philadelphia Jewish journalist, with a lesbian mother and distant physician father. She never wanted to be famous. The pop culture reporter was perfectly content writing about other people's lives on the pages of the Philadelphia Examiner. But the day she opens up a national women's magazine to find out that her ex-boyfriend, Bruce Guberman, has been chronicling their three year long ex-sex life is the day her life changes forever. Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in our world, Bruce has written. Cannie is plunged into misery, and into the most amazing year of her life. The author, Jennifer Weiner, 31, like Connie, is a Jewish journalist in Philadelphia with a lesbian mother, a physician father and a lifelong battle with her weight. Both the author and the character were born in Louisiana. Both drink more alcohol than Bridget Jones. Weiner's debut shines strongest in its witty dialogue. Shapiro is clever and sarcastic, caustic but generally kind. Funny is the fat person's defense mechanism, she says.

THE SPEED OF LIGHT
By Elizabeth Rosner
September 2001. Ballantine. A poetic and emotional novel. Paula and Julian Perel are the adult children of Holocaust survivors. They live in Berkeley. Their father, Jacob Perel, a survivor of Auschwitz was quiet, was silent, and has passed this legacy onto his son. Paula goes to Hungary to learn her father's truth. The siblings learn to face grief from their housekeeper, Sola, a Latina who was the victim of her own Mexican government's torture, massacre, and abuse.

ESTER'S CHILD
By Jean Sasson (author of the Princess Sultana series of books)
September 2001. A novel. Written in response to a story the author heard while visiting Lebanon and the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. It is a story about Joseph and ESTER Gale, Jewish survivors of the Treblinka and Auschwitz death camps, who come to Israel; and George and Mary Antoun who flee Haifa for the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut; and former SS Officer Friedrich and Eva Kleist, and how the lives of these three families become intertwined.

THE FAMILY ORCHARD. A novel (The Family Paradise/Eden, hint hint)
by Nomi Eve
Hardcover - 352 pages (September 26, 2000) Knopf. This is Eve's first novel about a pardess, a very sexual pardess. A multigenerational saga. Six generations of a Jewish family from 1837, when Yochanan and Esther marry in Turkish Ottoman Palestine, through the creation of the State of Israel. Although a postmodern, magical fiction, it is nearly autobiographical. A completely unique view of kosher sexual affairs is included also.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

PARADISE PARK
By Allegra Goodman
Dial. March 2001. From the author of Kaaterskill Falls.
Grab a copy of Shir ha Shirim (song of songs), skim them, and then start this novel. In 1974, Sharon Spiegleman, 22, a folkdancer and college dropout, follows her boyfriend to Wakiki Hawaii (where Allegra Goodman lived, and where the rabbi's license plate reads "ShAloha") from Boston via Berkeley and Portland, only to find him shacking up with someone else. Sharon then naively explores various forms of enlightenment, from New Age groups, to an Israeli yeshiva, to Crown Heights style Hasidism, to raising pot, to Pentacostalism, to returning to college, to taking more lovers, to Buddhism. Will she find true love and spirituality? Will she find community and forgiveness?
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

MARTYRS CROSSING by Amy Wilentz
Simon and Shuster. March 2001. Amy is the former Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker, and a specialist on Haiti. In this novel, the border checkpoints between Israel and the PA have been closed after two bus bombings in Israel. A young Palestinian woman, who wants to get her 2 year old asthmatic son to a hospital in Israel, begs a checkpoint soldier for permission to enter Israel. This is not just any mother. It is the wife of a jailed Hamas terrorist, Hassan Hajimi. Lt Ari Doron calls his superiors many times, trying to gain admittance for Marina and her son Ibrahim. But as he does, Marina's child dies. The answer was no. Lt Doron, who strives for truth, is plagued with guilt and seeks absolution in Ramallah. Colonel Daniel Yizhar is assigned to his case for crisis management. The Palestinian politicians, like Ahmed Amr, clothed in corruption, use this case as a cause du jour at the expense of The Cause. The street calls for "the solider." Into this mess arrives Doctor George Raad from the USA. The child's grandfather and a successful cardiologist (cast Edward Said in the role). Is he right or an anachronism? Is there room for his dissent in the PA? . Click to read more extensive descriptions of the plot.

THE GHOST OF HANNAH MENDES. A Novel
by NAOMI RAGEN
November 2001. Paperback edition of Ragen latest novel. Catherine da Costa of Manhattan seeks to leave her family tree, her grandchildren, a legacy. They aren't interested. But then, Catherine is visited by a ghost of her matriarch. She entices Catherine and her family on a trek across Europe in search of their pasts.

CLUB REVELATION
A Novel By ALLAN APPEL (The Rabbi of Casino Boulevard)
October 2001. Coffee House. The story of three interfaith couples on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and how religion affects, disrupts, redeems or heals their lives. Publisher Weekly said of this novel, "When William Harp, the son of a Southern evangelist minister, opens a restaurant on the bottom floor of a brownstone owned by three old friends and their wives, they have no idea that he plans to make it a Christian-themed cafeteria that he hopes will entice the area's many Jewish residents to convert. All too conveniently, the distaff side of the three couples are all originally Christian (one is now Buddhist) who have accepted their husbands' religions by osmosis, wisecracking in Yiddish and otherwise feeling comfortable in a largely Jewish social milieu. Again, all too conveniently, none of the couples has had children, so the wives are entirely free to pursue their careers. But when Harp's proselytizing Christianity reawakens Marylee Jeffers Levine's longings for spiritual salvation, personal and domestic turmoil ensue for the Levines, the Klains and the Belkins."

THE ROAD TO FEZ. A novel
by Ruth Knafo Setton
Couterpoint, March 2001. A first novel, quite erotic and introspective, too. When she was a young girl, Brit Suleika Lek and her parents move from El Kajda to the USA. She is named for a virgin martyr, Suleika, who was killed in 1834. But at age 18, when Brit's mother dies, she returns to the Moroccan Jewish mellah, where she prepares for a pilgrimage to the grave in Fez of the martyr for whom she is named. But she finds herself falling for her mother's younger brother, Gaby.

SECRET LOVE
by Bart Schneider
March 2001. A new novel by Bart Schneider, the author of Blue Bossa. The book's title (Secret Love) comes from the Doris Day song in the movie "Calamity Jane." The book is set in San Francisco, in the 1960s. The summer is approaching, and Barry Goldwater will be nominated top run against LBJ. Lenny Bruce is on the scene, as is Cassius Clay, Tang OJ mix, the race to the moon, Camus, and Mario Savio. Our hero is Jake Roseman, a Jewish prominent civil rights lawyer and agitator for urban renewal, who is in love with a beautiful black activist, Nisa. Jake, who dresses in Bermuda shorts, is in his 40s at a time when 40 was middle aged. Nisa Boehm (as in La Boheme?) is younger, an actress, and the daughter of a white socialite and a black father who vanished long ago. Nisa's annoyance grows from her Chinatown apartment, as Jake keeps her at arms length from his family. Jake is conflicted. Jake's wife, Inez, has recently committed suicide, and he has two kids. His curmudgeonly senile father is a vile racist. Over the course of their sensually passionate and sexually satisfying affair, Nisa draws Jake out of his remorseful depression and mourning. As their affair continues, we meet Peter, a handsome Jewish actor, who has of course changed his surname to make it in the business. Peter also finds love. After meeting in a foggy spot, Peter enters into a relationship with Simon Sims, a young black som of a minister. Simon, has fallen from his father's faith and taken up with the teachings of the Nation of Islam. So here are Jewish Peter and Muslim, closeted, gay, black, literary, janitor Simon, in love, and on their way to a civil rights march. You can see how the stories get interwoven. Click the cover to read more.

FRIDA a novel. by Barbara Mujica
Overlook Press. January 2001. Hardcover - 320 pages. Historical fiction based on the life of Frida Kahlo, narrated by her younger sister Cristina. A great complement to the two films in the works on the life of Frida. The half Jewish artist, lover of Diego Rivero, and artists' muse.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

GLORY GOES AND GETS SOME
by Emily Carter (as in Anne Roiphe's daughter and Katie Roiphe's sister)
Hardcover - 192 pages (September 1, 2000) Coffeehouse Press. How many kids do you know who were expelled from Kindergarten. They are bound for greatness. Emily Carter, the daughter of author Anne Roiphe (1185 PARK AVE) and sister of Katie Roiphe (Last Night in Paradise : Sex and Morals at the Century's End) has published her collection of 21 linked short stories. I have been anticipating this book for a while, having read profiles of Carter, the one time self-destructive, HIV-positive, East Village, heroin and coke addict. The narrator in most of the stories is Gloria Bronski, who goes from Manhattan to Minnesota to recover from addictions (just like Carter). Bronski is the daughter of Jewish intellectuals (hmmm, just like Carter). Glory (Gloria) craves attention and the attention of men; she also craves drugs. These are great, funny, and touching stories. Among the best of the stories is "The Bride", which takes its theme from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. A story of how one who craves affection and is unloved becomes MONSTROUS when repulsed and rejected.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

BEAUTIFUL WASPS HAVING SEX
The granddaughter of Zelda Zuckerman. Francine Fingerman (like Zelda Zuckerman, no?) changes he name to Frankie Jordan and tries to be a Hollywood screenwriter. Frankie is turning 40 and facing a divorce. Her screenplay is not yet finished, and then she meets her agent's gatekeeper and secretary, Jonathan Prince. He is Jewish, and handsome, oh, and he is 24 and eager. Of course he betrays her, but tthis is Hollywood. Frankie comes to understand herself and her fellow Hollywood Jews better as a result of her experience with Jonathan. Beneath the humor--and Carter is absolutely terrific with one-liners and has an unerring ear for dialogue-is an analysis of why Jews have always played such a major role in the movie industry. In the words of the ALA, "The author paints a Hollywood that is filled with self absorbed, self-hating Jews, who ALL talk EXACTLY like this, and who all have EXTREMELY neurotic parents whose expectations for their children left them NO choice but to become pushy and determinedly upwardly mobile, at WHATEVER cost, NEVER realizing that no matter how successful they MIGHT become, they CAN NEVER do enough to make up for the PAIN of the past." Click to read more reviews of this book.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

Jewish American Literature: A NORTON ANTHOLOGY
Edited by Jules Chametzky (UMASS), Hilene Flanzbaum (Butler), Kathryn Hellerstein (Penn), and John Felstiner (Stanford)
Hardcover - 1100 pages (October 2, 2000). Yes, 1100 pages... 145 writers of all genres. From the early colonists to Broadway lyricists to today's great writers--a redefinition of a vital American literary tradition. This rich anthology reconsiders Jewish American literature from its seventeenth-century origins to its flourishing present. It gathers the work of 145 writers in all genres--fiction, poetry, drama, essays, journals, autobiography, song lyrics, and cartoons. Here readers will find the petitions and memoirs of the first Sephardic settlers, the Yiddish and English voices of the great era of immigration, modernist writers exploring their Americanness, and activist writers working for change. Here too is the generation of writers and poets who define postwar American literature--Arthur Miller, Tillie Olsen, Bernard Malamud, Allen Ginsberg, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth--and a younger generation--Art Spiegelman, Jacqueline Osherow, Melvin Jules Bukiet, and Allegra Goodman.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

CONEY by Amram Ducovny
Hardcover - 320 pages (September 2000). A novel of growing up in pre-War Jewish Brooklyn. Hmm Ducovny, that's name sounds familiar. Umm, well he is the father of the X-Files actor, David Ducovny, and the author of about 10 other books, but this is his first novel. Set in Brooklyn's Coney Island neighborhood in the 1930's, we meet Harry Catzker, age 15. Harry lives with his father, Moishe, a Yiddish journalist; his Polish born mother, Velia; and grandma Bama, who is considering a return to Europe since she never learned English. Harry gets involved in the seedier side of the Coney Island midway and meets quite unusual characters and denizens of the underground economy. He also interacts in educational dialogues with Aba Stolz, a Yiddish poet who boards in his family's home, visits the Harlem jazz clubs, and comes of age in this immigrant mileiu.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY by Michael Chabon
Random House Hardcover - 639 pages (September 2000).
Another great book from the fingers of Michael Chabon, a favorite Jewish novelist (Wonder Boys, A Model World, Mysteries of Pittsburgh, the Nathan stories). Slightly based on lives of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel. Sam Klayman has a new roommate. His cousin, Josef Kavalier, has been smuggled out of Nazi occupied Prague in the same crate that contains The Golem. These boys create a cartoon character, The Escapist. The Escapist fights for good. Now if only the comic book industry would give these two cousins a fair shake. Click to read more extensive reviews.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.

MEETING THE PIEMAN
By Victor Wartofsky
The story of a tormented Jewish carpenter, Simon Earber, who in desperation gives up his trade to become a grocer in the black ghetto of Washington DC. There he meets angry, sullen, young customers. As he collects on their bills he is not well liked and is a focus of resentment. He takes his wife and son to live in the ghetto with him. Reissued from 1971. It was noted to be the first American novel to dissect the tensins between blacks and Jews.

GODS RAT
By Michael Bookman
In his just just published historical novel, God's Rat, author Michael Bookman takes us back to NY's East Side early in the last Century, to a time when tough and Jewish wasn't an oxymoron. One of the toughest Jews was a gangster known as Big Jack Zelig. Here's how Carl Sifakis in his acclaimed Encyclopedia of American Crime describes Zelig: "A handsome brutish killer, Big Jack's services were always available for hire to any bidder, high or low. There is no record of the gang leader ever turning down any job of violence." Yet the Yiddish newspapers of the time called Zelig the "People's Protector". Indeed he was loved by the masses. When Big Jack and the "boys" were around the Irish and Italian Jew bashers stayed out of "Jew Town". Zelig was shot dead on November of 1911 at 26 in a gambling dispute His funeral procession drew thousands of grief stricken East Siders. In God's Rat Michael Bookman vividly describes this astonishing spectacle.

THE SHADOW MASTER
By Michael Bookman
Monolithic communism is in ruins. When an archeologist, Karel Zeman, turns up dead in his room in a luxury hotel--his brother Klement, an intelligence agent, embarks on an investigation that will lead him across Eastern Europe. Quickly, the death that had not seemed to be a crime becomes a hunt--first to find a beautiful woman, then to track a mass murderer. At that point, the shadows part. The Spook (the spy) meets the Spook (the supernatural) in a stunning coalition that redefines the genre of espionage fiction.

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Novels and Fiction (click on a listing for more information, to see the cover art, or to purchase it)

Novels and Fiction
(click on a listing for more information, to see the cover art, or to purchase it)