David Mamet has said that if he hadn't found a life in the theater, it is very likely he would have become a criminal. In Jafsie and John Henry the master improviser takes on a range of roles and personae in a lively and personal way. Though older and wiser than when he first shocked theatergoers with the play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Mamet remains one of the most provocative and iconoclastic voices in American writing today, with an idiom so distinct, so American, that it defies comparison. Mamet in this diverse collection turns his unique lens on subjects ranging from houses to Hollywood producers. As the writer turns fifty, he not only shares his reflections on the nature of creativity and the challenges and rewards of aging but delves into his most intimate obsessions. From a description of the labyrinthine psychology of poker to sharp sallies on moviemaking gibberish and the meaning of macho, Jafsie and John Henry is knit together by Mamet's unique perspective and inimitably spare wit. Oscar Wilde, the tower of Babel, The House Committee on Un-American Activities, Jewish scripture, police corruption, the art of acting, and single-malt scotch are all grist for the mill of Mamet's quicksilver mind. He reminisces about his first car, muses on the Lindbergh trial, laments the loss of the art of knifemaking, and lambastes Hollywood culture. The perennial outsider, David Mamet gives us an inside look at the unique world of an American icon and an unromantic perspective on the changing nature of creativity in an artist's life.

Within the framework of the position that the world will always hate the Jews and that Christian antisemitism remains strong while Muslim antisemitism is now fierce and lethal, focuses on Jewish self-hatred. Discusses apostate Jews, who are deemed guilty of race treason against their fellow Jews and are viewed as unaligned, non-observant, anti-Zionist "ex-Jews" suffering from Jewish guilt and self-loathing. Like non-Jews, apostate Jews are uncomfortable with the refusal of the State of Israel to accept victim status and they prefer dead Jews to live ones. Identifies such anti-Zionists with the American Left. Refers, at times, to apostate Jews as masochistic or neurotic. Deals extensively with the problem of the rejection by these Jews of a Jewish identity which, in any case, the world will not forget or forgive. Calls on them to return home to their people, who are the only ones that will accept them.