Nadler is a writer’s writer, a fine observer of the nuances and idiosyncrasies of character.
Reflective stories about family relationships—parent-child, grandparent-child, brother-brother, husband-wife—with a focus on generally nonobservant Jews.
Nadler seems to know his characters inside-out and spins out their foibles and frailties in a leisurely fashion. In the first story, “In the Book of Life,” Abe Rivkin has a brief fling with the seductive but manipulative daughter of his longtime friend and business partner, Larry Reinstein—and then discovers that Larry has been having an affair with Abe’s wife. In “Winter on the Sawtooth,” Josh returns home after four months at Stanford to find out his mother is having an affair with the teacher of her memoir-writing course. While Josh’s father knows but doesn’t approve of his wife’s dalliance, Josh, who during his first semester has started to take religion seriously, is angered by his father’s passivity as well as by his mother’s infidelity. In “The Moon Landing,” two brothers, Charlie and Dave, try to come to terms with the death of their parents, who passed away only days apart. Charlie has been trying to make it as a writer in Hollywood and has had modest success with a B-movie script, while Dave is the “successful” son, an affluent attorney who stayed near his parents in Boston but who harbors resentment against Charlie’s abandonment. “Beyond Any Blessing,” the final story in the collection, and one of the best, introduces us to Daniel, whose parents died when he was seven and who was raised by his elderly grandfather, a rabbi. Now, at the age of 90, his grandfather has been let go due to infidelity, and Daniel tries both to help him and to come to terms with his own restless and unintelligible life.
Nadler is a writer’s writer, a fine observer of the nuances and idiosyncrasies of character.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-12647-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: He’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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