The Man Who Loved His Wife
Jews being Jewish: that's the subject of Jennifer Anne Moses's collection of short stories. Whether in Tel Aviv, suburban New Jersey, or the Deep South, the characters grapple with God, their loved ones, fate, death, hope, Hitler, transcendence, and the 4000-year-old history of Judaism. With a Yiddish sensibility born of passion, an eye for detail, and a deadpan sense of humor reminiscent of Singer, Salinger, and Tillie Olsen, Moses captures singularly Jewish and wholly human characters as they live and breathe through their stories. A secular Israeli loses his son twice, first to ultra-Orthodoxy and then to war. An elderly survivor of Nazism living in Baton Rouge believes his dog to be the reincarnation of his long-dead sister. Meanwhile, in Queens, an adolescent boy mistakes love for magic and brings his family to the brink of catastrophe.
"Jennifer Anne Moses is our century's Bernard Malamud or Saul Bellow. With warmth, tenderness, and wit, she captures the essence of the modern Jewish experience in the family, the workplace, and the bedroom. It leaves you hungry for more."
— Gabrielle Glaser, author of American Baby
"The wonderful stories play the heartstrings like a harp, striking deep chords of pathos and passion to wild chords of hilarity. Seldom does such essential wisdom come in such an entertaining package."
— Steve Stern, author of The Frozen Rabbi
"At their finest, these stories have the wit, whimsy, and surreal wonder of Chagall paintings — but a dark, depraved Chagall whose angels are as deeply flawed as they are grittily earthbound."
— Peter Selgin, author of Drowning Lessons
"Moses has the Malamudian touch, and an uncanny gift for transposing the Yiddish mixture of mordancy and compassion into lively English stories."
— Leon Weiseltier, Editor, Liberties
"Few others writing today explore as profoundly the stress of childhood, adolescence, and parenthood on the second and third generations of East European immigrants — the Jewish family in its American incarnation."
— Sol Gittelman, author of From Shtetl to Suburbia