Customer Reviews

Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge

5 star:		(5)
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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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This is a witty, sardonic, engrossing, and very funny collection of stories and I highly recommend it. The voices of these writers are young, fresh, and smart. Plus, it's a great book to read on the subway.

This book, for me, was about finding a connection. These writers spoke to so many issues that I have with my own Judaism that my parents and grandparents don't have, or aren't comfortable discussing, such as dealing with the over-exposure of the Holocaust, being Jewish in a secular world and LIKING IT, and being Jewish in a world in which Israel has always existed in your life time.

These are not stories about being Jewish and being a victim, these are stories about people who happen to be Jewish and how that happens to affect their lives - or not.

This book gives me hope for Jewish writing. The selection of stories is surprising and subtle, and together they add up to a portrait of modern Jewish life that's completely different from what one gathers from fretting Jewish newspapers and anxious studies about "intermarriage." But I don't just recommend Lost Tribe as a sociological corrective -- it's a brilliant work of editing, the themes of story responded to or carried forward by the next. I have my favorites, but I won't mention them -- get this book, read it with friends, and discuss.

It's amazing how hard it is for me as a contemporary Jewish fiction writer to find contemporary Jewish short fiction that speaks to the current generation of Jews. This is a sad book in many ways. Many of the stories leave me with a feeling of loss. So many Jews feeling so disconnected. The high quality of the fiction helps explore those feelings of Lost Tribeness from so many angles. Really an important read, wherever you stand in the Jewish world.

The material in this collection is fabulous but not all original. I forked out some hard-earned bucks because I thought I was getting new fiction on the cutting edge by authors that I had read and admired and found that this book offered a lot of warmed up leftovers. Most of the big names in this collection gave the author rights to reprint material from their previously published books, books that were several years old. I think the book was marketed in a misleading way.

"Lost Tribe" is one of my favorite books of short stories. I couldn't put it down and look forward to reading other material by these authors. I also like the personal touch of each author's comments at the end of his/her piece. Nicely organized.

I do a lot of traveling and having a book of short stories is ideal for the plane. There's generally enough time to get through at least one with a sense of completion and this great assembly was so engaging, I kept hoping that the flights would last longer so I could move on to another story.

I just finished Lost Tribe. I loved it. Without a doubt the best collection of short stories I have ever read. As a writer (still very small time) I found the book inspiring; I would someday like to achieve the quality of writing I found in LT.

I saw this book next to The Best American Short Stories four years back, purchased it, and it took me another few years before I even noticed it in my collection. I wasn't sure what to expect, but considering the last two books I read were Portnoy's Complaint and the autobiography of Richard Lewis, I thought I was setting myself up for disappointment. The first couple stories I felt like that guy who goes to a comedy club and just sits there with his arms crossed, stone-faced, daring the comedian to make him laugh. Once I got through the first page or two, and realized that there was no hidden agenda to the book, I fell into just about every story I read. My favorite being The Argument by Rachel Kadish. I practically highlighted the whole story with dialogue, ideas and scenes I found fascinating.