With wonderfully idiosyncratic characters and deft use of detail, Gerald Shapiro takes us beyond the grimmness of the lives of his characters to reveal the hunger-and the hope-in us all.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Forty-ish and faltering, the Jewish men in the nine stories in this debut collection have reached a crossroads. And whether they are looking for guidance or a return to the uncomplicated years of their boyhoods, they maintain their basic innocence in a troubling world. The settings here range from Chicago to London, but the language of the characters is pure Hester Street ("You was such a sweet, beautiful boy. Such a Shayne punim . . . and polite?"). On occasion, imps and demons intervene. In "The Community Seder," Schrank receives a mysterious invitation to a seder where most of the participants, members of his childhood shul, are already dead. "Openings," a send-up of the New York art scene, features Neal Dubinsky (who exhibits "found objects stuffed into cubicles"), chronically indecisive yet instantly willing to choose love over fame. The search for faith and integrity, and the need for community, propel these angst-ridden characters. Shapiro's prose is often acerbic and witty, but his heart is compassionate as he allows his bemused men a flash of insight and the gift of a second chance.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A promising first collection of nine stories about men full of Weltschmerz and tangled up by affairs of the head; Shapiro's sardonic delivery is leavened by a black humor reminiscent of Bruce Jay Friedman. In the title story, Altshuler, an affluent shoe-designer, takes in his uncle Phil (``the dumb yutz''), who visits after being left by his wife of 42 years. Phil is a classic overeater and finally dies, but not before Altshuler learns one of life's lessons about forbearance and generosity. ``The Marine Mammal Guy,'' about a man who leaves his girlfriend in New Jersey to take a job as the ``Ape House promo whiz'' for the San Francisco Zoo, only to lose both girl and job before picking himself up from the floor, is vintage Friedman absurdism. ``After Hope'' is a meditation by a writer/narrator who settled for less than his early promise, but who remembers his salad days in the presence of Minnesota writer Thayer Hayes, who disappears in 1977, thereby fueling rumor and speculation. ``At the Wall'' is a powerful portrait of a shallow man, a tourist, who visits the Vietnam Memorial and faces his guilt in the form of a black man with no money for a bus home. ``Golders Green'' follows one Ted Lustig to London. A mediocre scholar who ostensibly researches Coleridge but secretively reads and empathizes with von Kleist, a young suicide victim who was ``still possessed of the knowledge that truth was knowable,'' Lustig comes to understand, though ambiguously, ``the connectedness of things....'' Some of these stories appeared in the Kenyon Review, Gettysburg Review, and other literary magazines. Mostly, Shapiro redeems his characters' angst without simplifying their predicaments or simplifying experience. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
far more than "promising",
This review is from: From Hunger: Stories (Hardcover)
It is unbelievable that Gerald Shapiro's first book has been panned for sixteen years. I know the people in these stories. I've been the places they've been. I've been a victim of these same aspirations. Is it unique to Jews that such people, places and things should resonate so?
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