A novel best enjoyed for its examination of a people and a culture.
Touching on the influence of religious faith in the secular world, debut novelist Beck intriguingly examines Jewish immigrant life in New York City during the early 20th century.
In July 1890, arriving in America from Minsk, Jacob Rubinowitz decided to become Jack Rubin. In this three-generation family story, Jack is the catalyst, and Beck paints a portrait of a man equally admirable and frustrating. After youthful struggles, Jack marries Rose, the daughter of immigrant scholar Ben-Zion Perlman. Jack helps Rose harness her fashion talent. With Jack’s investments, the Rubins prosper and provide a home for Ben-Zion, who grows resentful and jealous as he ages. The intrafamilial tension grows worse as the relationship between Ben-Zion and his precocious granddaughter, Ruthie, deepens. Ruthie, an accomplished writer as a teen, is invited by a publisher to expand a short story into a novel about the Pale of Settlement and its "heritage of pogroms, and life in the shtetle." Ruthie falls in love with her young editor, Harry Berger. Angry objections arise. The Rubins are Orthodox Jews; the Bergers are Reform. Then, Ben-Zion encourages a decision that soon provokes unintended consequences, one aggravated by Harry’s religious conviction growing more fervent. There are references to scholars from Hillel to Maimonides, to social and ceremonial distinctions between Orthodox and Reform Jews, and a précis on cabala. The narrative—driven by Jack’s "gnawing insecurity" of never being "American enough" and Ruthie’s desire to step beyond Old World patriarchy—is seamless and well-paced. The dialogue avoids parody, and the setting provides an informative portrait of the Jewish immigrant experience, enhanced by back story anecdotes of Eastern European Jewish life, all while offering insight into how religion shapes culture.
A novel best enjoyed for its examination of a people and a culture.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944995-09-6
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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