Nathan Englander
These eight new stories from the celebrated novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander display a gifted young author grappling with the great questions of modern life, with a command of language and the imagination that place Englander at the very forefront of contemporary American fiction., Â , The title story, inspired by Raymond Carverâ€™s masterpiece, is a provocative portrait of two marriages in which the Holocaust is played out as a devastating parlor game. In the outlandishly dark â€œCamp Sundownâ€ vigilante justice is undertaken by a group of geriatric campers in a bucolic summer enclave. â€œFree Fruit for Young Widowsâ€ is a small, sharp study in evil, lovingly told by a father to a son. â€œSister Hillsâ€ chronicles the history of Israelâ€™s settlements from the eve of the Yom Kippur War through the present, a political fable constructed around the tale of two mothers who strike a terrible bargain to save a child. Marking a return to two of Englanderâ€™s classic themes, â€œPeep Showâ€ and â€œHow We Avenged the Blumsâ€ wrestle with sexual longing and ingenuity in the face of adversity and peril. And â€œEverything I Know About My Family on My Motherâ€™s Sideâ€ is suffused with an intimacy and tenderness that break new ground for a writer who seems constantly to be expanding the parameters of what he can achieve in the short form., Â , Beautiful and courageous, funny and achingly sad, Englanderâ€™s work is a revelation.
Short Stories,Fiction,Literature,Jewish,Literary Fiction,Religion,Judaism,World War II,Holocaust,Religion,Short Stories,Short Story Collection,Literature,American,Contemporary
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