17 results for "Jewish Fiction"

The Yid

Goldberg, Paul
"Moscow, February 1953. A week before Stalin's death, his final pogrom, "one that would forever rid the Motherland of the vermin," is in full swing. Three government goons arrive in the middle of the night to arrest Solomon Shimonovich Levinson, an actor from the defunct State Jewish Theater. But Levinson, though an old man, is a veteran of past wars, and his shocking response to the intruders sets in motion a series of events both zany and deadly as he proceeds to assemble a ragtag group to help him enact a mad-brilliant plot: the assassination of a tyrant. Levinson's cast of unlikely heroes includes Aleksandr Kogan, a machine-gunner in Levinson's Red Army band who has since become one of Moscow's premier surgeons; Frederick Lewis, an African American who came to the USSR to build smelters and stayed to work as an engineer, learning Russian, Esperanto, and Yiddish; and Kima Petrova, an enigmatic young woman with a score to settle. While the setting is Soviet Russia, the backdrop is Shakespeare: A mad king has a diabolical plan to exterminate and deport his country's remaining Jews. And wandering through the narrative, like a crazy Soviet Ragtime, are such historical figures as Paul Robeson, Solomon Mikhoels, and Marc Chagall. As hilarious as it is moving, as intellectual as it is violent--with echoes of Inglourious Basterds and Seven Samurai--THE YID is a tragicomic masterpiece of historical fiction"--
Picador 2016-02-02 307 pages

The Mathematician's Shiva: a novel

Rojstaczer, Stuart
" A comic, bittersweet tale of family evocative of The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Everything Is Illuminated Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish e;migre; mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar, Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem. Rumor also has it that she spitefully took the solution to her grave. To Sasha's chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution-even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela's notes. Written by a trained geophysicist, this hilarious and multi-layered debut novel brims with colorful characters and brilliantly captures humanity's drive not just to survive, but to solve the impossible"--
Penguin Books 2014 366 pages

Novels and stories of the 1970s & 80s

Malamud, Bernard
"This capstone novel in Library of America's Bernard Malamud edition brings together his three final novels: The Tenants, about the growing tension between two male writers--one Jewish, the other Black--who are the only inhabitants of a crumbling Manhattan tenement house; Dubin's Lives, a revealing study in the perils and promise of love in middle age thought to be Malamud's most autobiographical work; and God's Grace, a postapocalyptic tale of upended evolution in which redemption depends on the lone human survivor's ability to find common ground with a talking chimp. Edited by Malamud's definitive biographer, the volume is rounded out with thirteen masterful short stories and the memoir 'Long Work, Short Life' as well as a fascinating autobiographic sketch, 'A Lost Bar-Mitzvah,' published here for the first time."--Dust jacket.
The Library of America 2023-03-28 899 pages

Namedropper

Forrest, Emma
Meet Viva Cohen: her bedroom walls are plastered with posters of silver-screen legends, and underneath her school uniform she wears vintage thigh-high stockings. Her best friends are a drugged-out beauty queen and an aging rock star. She lives in London with her gay uncle Manny. A bitingly funny and fiercely intelligent first novel, "Namedropper" takes you on a rowdy romp from London to Los Angeles, where Viva and her two best friends search for love, experience, and Jack Nicholson. It's a wild ride as she uncovers the icon in every person she meets.
Arrow 1998 234 pages

Fuck America: Bronsky's confession

Hilsenrath, Edgar
"If you, Jakob Bronsky, meet such a girl, she will wonder: Who is Jakob Bronsky? ... What does Bronsky know about the 'American way of life'? Does Jakob Bronsky know that only success counts and nothing else? Is he a guy who ruthlessly gets his way but still believes in God Almighty? Does he know that our world is an idyllic one? ... Is he familiar with the ideals of our forefathers who arrived on the first boat, the Mayflower, and what does he think of Coca-Cola Culture?" For more information, please see: http: //doi.org/10.4444/10.4
Owl of Minerva 2018 274 pages

Hotel Cuba: a novel

Hamburger, Aaron
Fleeing the chaos of World War I and the terror of the Soviet Revolution, practical, sensible Pearl Kahn and her lovestruck, impulsive younger sibling Frieda sail for America to join their sister in New York. But discriminatory new immigration laws bar their entry, and the young women are turned back at Ellis Island. With few options, Pearl and Frieda head for Havana, Cuba, convinced they will find a way to overcome this setback. At first, life in big-city Prohibition-era Havana is overwhelming, like nothing Pearl and Frieda have ever experienced--or could have ever imagined in the rural shtetl where they grew up. As the sisters begin to adjust, their plans for going to America together become complicated. Frieda falls for the not-so-dreamy man of her dreams while Pearl's life opens up unexpectedly, offering her a taste of freedom and heady romance, and an opportunity to build a future on her own terms. Though to do so, she must confront her past and the shame she has long carried. A heartbreaking, epic family story, Hotel Cuba explores the profound courage of two women displaced from their home who strive to create a new future in an enticing and dangerous world far different from anything they have ever known.
Harper Perennial 2023-05-02 400 pages

Allegra Maud Goldman

Konecky, Edith
A special twenty-fifth anniversary edition relaunches this beloved classic coming-of-age nove, which was called "one of those rare delights... as wise as it is funny" (Alix Kates Shulman, Ms. magazine). This endearing novel chronicles the growth of the young Allegra in pre-World War II Brooklyn as she learns about sex, death, bigotry, family limitations, and what it means to be young and female and independent. Marketing Plans for "Allegra Maud Goldman": Advance review copies to booksellers Twenty-fifth anniversary press kit Strong media push Edith Konecky is the author of a second novel, "A Place at the Table," as well as short fiction and poetry.
Feminist Press at the City University of New York 1990 187 pages

Faith for beginners: a novel

Hamburger, Aaron
"In the summer of 2000, Israel teeters between total war and total peace. Similarly on edge, Helen Michaelson, a respectable suburban housewife from Michigan, has brought her ailing husband and rebellious college-age son, Jeremy, to Jerusalem. She hopes the journey will inspire Jeremy to reconnect with his faith and find meaning in his life ... or at least get rid of his nose ring. It's not that Helen is concerned about Jeremy's sexual orientation (after all, her other son is gay as well). It's merely the matter of the overdose ('Just like Liza!' Jeremy had said), the green hair, and what looks like a safety pin stuck through his face. After therapy, unconditional love, and tough love ... why not try Israel? Yet in seductive and dangerous surroundings, with the rumbling of violence and change in the air, in a part of the world where 'there are no modern times, ' mother and son become new, old, and surprising versions of themselves. Funny, erotic, searingly insightful, and profoundly moving, Faith for Beginners is a stunning debut novel from a vibrant new voice in fiction."--Jacket.
Random House 2005 340 pages

Gucci Gucci coo

Margolis, Sue
The acclaimed author of Original Cyn finds fertile ground for her wicked wit in this ferociously funny new novel about babies, sex, celebrity...and daring to date a gynecologist. Ruby (still single at thirty-two) Silverman has made a name for herself at Les Sprogs, her exclusive baby boutique where trust-fund mothers swaddle their infants in the hottest designer wear. But all those bumps and babes can’t prepare Ruby for the bombshell her fifty-year-old mother drops on her: Ruby’s about to get…a baby brother or sister! When Ruby recovers from the shock of her mother’s pregnancy, she can’t help but question her own baby-making future. Is catering to celebrity moms and cooing over her friends’ kids all she has to look forward to? Sam Epstien would passionately disagree. He’s the gorgeous Jewish gynecologist who has set his amorous sights on her. Soon they’re seriously involved, and life seems to be looking up for Ruby. Until she stumbles upon a shady baby-brokering business that could erupt into a major scandal, derail her career, and maybe even force her to toss the supposedly perfect man out with the bathwater.
Delta Trade Paperbacks 2006 352 pages

The waiting game

Rubens, Bernice
At 'The Hollyhocks' old people's home, the inhabitants are 'waiting for the scythe'. But while they are waiting...Lady Celia is running a blackmailing business on the side, Mr Cross keeps a tally of fellow residents' deaths on the back of his wardrobe, and then there is the rabid old Scots nationalist, and Mrs Green, a woman with a mysterious past. Hardly surprising in this environment that Mrs Bellamy decides she can't take any more and slits her throat. When Matron hushes it up because it would be bad for business, Lady Celia sees an opportunity to expand her blackmailing operation. Meanwhile two new incomers disturb the life of the home further; Mrs Feinberg, a sprightly Jewish woman of whom the other residents are immediately suspicious, and the elegant Mr Rufus. Hidden pasts, unusual sexual preferences and wickedly dark humour are mixed to delicious effect in Bernice Rubens' wonderful new novel.
Abacus 1998 249 pages

Launderama

Margolis, Sue
Rachel has been making people laugh since the moment she could speak. She can even see the funny side when her husband leaves her for a cosmetics demonstrator. Called Greg. Rachel becomes a professional stand-up comedian, but has yet to break into the big time. And with a ten-year-old child and a mortgage, she needs a day job to make ends meet. So Rachel spends her mornings cleaning the houses of the rich and famous, much to the chagrin of her Jewish mother Stella (main ambition: to see Rachel safely re-married) and her Jewish dentist boyfriend Adam (main ambition: to share a scoured and swabbed, germ-free home in the suburbs with Rachel). Life for Rachel couldn't be sweeter. Yet somehow it lacks a certain spark. But there are sparks a-plenty when the washing machine breaks down a repair man called Matt arrives ... and sends her life into a spin.
Headline 2001 311 pages