Customer Reviews

LITTLE MEN: NOVELLAS AND STORIES (Ohio State Univ Prize in Short Fiction)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The publishing of Gerald Shapiro's book Little Men is a built-in pro-argument for university publishing houses (in this case: Ohio State University). Will this book comprised of a couple of novellas as well as short stories make money? Who knows? First principles first: Publish!

As hilarious as the opening novella A Box Of Ashes, is with a laugh-a-minute (you can time yourself on this) pacing; it is the closing novella Spivak in Babylon that hit this reader with especial poignancy. In the story's closing pages, Mr. Shapiro doesn't tie-up in a neat bow, the dirty deeds chronicled about Leo Spivak. Instead he opts for a utterly realistic 'how-it-is'and 'how-it-it'will-be' when you go down that road to perdition and betrayal of everything/anything dear to your life.

I read a lot of Jewish American fiction. And most of it is either too Jewish or too literary for my taste. But this collection reminds me of the smart and funny stuff written by Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Bruce Friedman and Joseph Epstein. The stories explore modern Jewish male angst, guilt and sex, imperfect pasts, presently impossible relatives and there's even some Eighties style drug use. In short, they're contemporary without being terminally hip. Worth your time and money.