Customer Reviews

Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish: The Heeb Storytelling Collection

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

 

 

The stories in this collection are both hilarious and honest, they're vulgar and sentimental. They run the gamut from a broken-hearted Bigfoot to a "gay" Bar Mitzvah to discussing politics with Grandma. The writers discuss their love lives, their careers and, of course, their families. I'm not Jewish, but I could still relate to many of the stories and laugh out loud along with the writers.

It's a funny, funny book. I found myself picking it up every time I glanced at it to read just one more story. Of course, the "just one more" turned into two or three or four. I also had to share bits and pieces with my husband, who sometimes laughed and sometimes looked at me like I was crazy.

While I was excited to review Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish, I was a bit worried that I wouldn't fully appreciate the humor or the nuances of the writing. I found the book thoroughly entertaining, even though I'm not Jewish. The book is divided into six parts: Sex, Drugs, Work, Youth, Family, and Body & Soul. Each part has from six to twelve short stories, each by a different author. The stories of young love, awkward encounters, and self-discovery are sometimes touching, often hilarious, and fun.

The stories aren't connected, so you can start with any story. You'll likely not be able to stop at one. I would read at least three or four at a sitting. No doubt the stories would be even more enjoyable to someone fully familiar with the culture and religion.

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (October 26, 2009), 288 pages.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Very funny little snipets of the livesof jewish hipsters and any one who grow up in Long Island or NYC will find it extra funny.

The presentation of this anthology isn't that great, in my opinion. The back cover is cigarettes stubbed out on what I assume is gefilte fish (er, it looks like organ meat texture and is covered in this jelly-like fluid). The front is weighed down by the dark border and puts the emphasis on the "drugs" part of SEX, DRUGS, & GEFILTE FISH. But Drugs is only one of the six sections, and most of the stories within it are relatively innocent, including OCD medication, Plan B, giving a cat meds, and letting a dying old woman smoke a joint. (Stephanie Green's "Benzos and Breast Cancer"? Not innocent.) Since the plate on the cover has six holes, couldn't each one of them represent one of the sections instead of four of them representing one of the smaller sections? It looks kind of like a coffee table book, but it doesn't really look like something you'd want to display on your coffee table.

The other sections is the anthology are Sex, Work, Youth, Family, and Body & Soul. Youth is the longest at 52 pages; Sex is the shortest at 23. (Drugs clocks in at 25.) My favorite stories were "Prime-Time Playa" by Andy Borowitz, "Poop Sandwich" by Abby Sher, and "Finding My Kegel Muscles" by Stephen Glass. Why these three? Well, "Prime-Time Playa" tells about the beginning of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I loved that show as a kid, and it's interesting to see just how it came to be. "Poop Sandwich" definitely makes me uncomfortable, but Sher perfectly captures the It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time existence of high school. "Finding My Kegel Muscles" reminded me of my own inability to let something go when I think it's wrong. And I agreed with Stephen; I don't think men have Kegel muscles. (My reason for liking the story really stood out once I realized it was that Stephen Glass.)

Some of the stories are strike-. It's an anthology; it happens. But overall SEX, DRUGS, & GEFILTE FISH is humorous and thought-provoking. Though the commonality is being an American Jew (except for one story), there is a range of experiences, including sexuality, represented. Ignore the cover and pick it up for these stories that show good satire survived past in the eighteenth century.

From In Bed With Books

Review copy

This compilation by Heeb magazine combines humor with a profound look at being a Jewish-American assimilated into the country's culture yet keeping oneself partially immersed in Judaism. The forty-eight essays are divided unequally into six classifications that cleverly reflect like for a Jew in the United States: sex, drugs, work, youth, family, body and soul. Each is well written to bring out an experience using PowerPoint as Caryn Aviv did rather than the Rabbi or "Lesbians at temple" in which Lisa Kron explains the meaning of "Please Rise" during the High Holy days using bowel obstruction for lucid denotation. Whether it is naked at the kibbutz (Rebecca Addelman) or seeing the Hebrew School teacher naked at her home (Eric Weingrad), readers will enjoy this irreverent yet relevant look at being Jewish in America. As my spouse fondly recalls growing up with an Orthodox mom, a pagan dad, and two leaning towards paganism brothers, he remains proud four decades after bringing out into the open over the kitchen table: the point spread during Hanukkah with the pot being chocolate money. This collection is a terrific anthology that uses jocularity to tell the story of Jews adapting in America several generations after having our centuries old ancestral names anglicized at Ellis.

Harriet Klausner