Customer Reviews

American Jewish Fiction: A Century of Stories

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This looks like it will be a very good book to read and discuss in our book discussion group. Since we are going to read the stories one at a time, every two weeks, I do not know or wish to read ahead.

In his astute introduction to this volume Gerald Shapiro points to a previous anthology of Jewish stories edited close to thirty years before by Irving Howe. Howe saw his anthology as as the swan- song of American- Jewish literature, the movement of a moment which had had its moment in the 50's and 60's and now was gone. Shapiro writing three decades later says that the report of the demise of American Jewish writing was premature.
He offers as evidence the work of a bevy of young writers for whom Jewishness is a central theme of their work. He argues that this question of Jewish identity, along with the question of religious faith and skepticism are two central themes of American- Jewish Literature throughout.
Shapiro does not rely on contemporaries alone. This fine anthology goes back with Cahan and Yezeirska to the Yiddish background beginnigs of American- Jewish Literature. It includes a long list of important American - Jewish writers, and concludes with a group of contemporaries, Michelle Herman, Melvin Bukiet, Allegra Goodman, Helen Schulman.
It of course contains works by Bellow, Roth, Malamud, Ozick, and the finest of all Jewish storytellers, I.B. Singer.
Shapiro says that he sees 'literature' as an ongoing conversation and makes connection between various works which speak to each other.
Perhaps not all, but I am sure many of these works will speak to the reader in a persuasive and moving way.

Books were advertised as "very good condition" but they were brand new books at a wonderful price - terrific service!