Synopses & Reviews
Fans of Joseph Epstein's best-selling Snobbery: The American Version will recognize the same wit, insight, and incisive social examination in Fabulous Small Jews, Epstein's first collection of stories since 1992's The Goldin Boys. In these pages are artists, writers, a commodities trader, a concert pianist, lawyers on the make, all at various crossroads and turning points in their lives. These are classic stories with universal themes: the rights of talent, the attempt to shake one's identity, the desperation of strangled impulses, the complexities of family love. But, as always with Epstein, the magic, the charm, and the humor are in his lavish details. The stories in Fabulous Small Jews are small worlds writ large, and Epstein's observant eye and engaging voice bring them alive on the page.
Review
"[A]s thoughtful and arresting as its title....Epstein's characters are quirky, witty, resentful, fearful and cautiously hopeful....Gratifying and genuine..." Publishers Weekly
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"[V]ery readable....A mixed second collection...but, on the whole, Epstein's most successful foray into fiction yet." Kirkus Reviews
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"Joseph Epstein has a light touch, which allows the readers to make their own meaning from his stories." Susan Salter Reynolds, The Los Angeles Times
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"Epstein...succeeds admirably by writing with charm and sensitivity....Through these vignettes, a range of universal themes is brought down to earth in a touching and thoughtful way. Highly recommended." Library Journal
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"[S]olid, subtle, endearing and refreshingly without gimmick....Fabulous Small Jews presents a growing rarity: stories that are accessible but challenging...and whose writing is intelligent but not academic." Thomas Haley, Minneapolis Star Tribune
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"Epstein is less at home in short stories [than in essay writing]....The chief shortcoming in the stories is...the inability to close....If Epstein is not quite at home in the short story, by no means is he at sea." Roger K. Miller, The Chicago Sun-Times
Review
"Epstein's stories add up to a rich portrait of mid-20th century Jewish life in Chicago....[A] simple, old-fashioned story collection, free of the stylistic bells and whistles...that are popular among many writers today." Jenny Shank, Rocky Mountain News
Synopsis
In Fabulous Small Jews, the best-selling author Joseph Epstein has produced eighteen charming, magical, and finely detailed stories. They are populated by lawyers, professors, scrap-iron dealers, dry cleaners, all men of a certain age who feel themselves adrift in the radically changed values of the day. Epstein's richly drawn characters are at various crossroads and turning points in their lives: bitter Seymour Hefferman, who anonymously sends scathing postcards to writers until he gets caught; Moe Bernstein, who, inspired by his grandson, decides to attend to his own health after long delay; divorcé Artie Glick, who wants to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Fabulous Small Jews is a marvelous collection from a master of the short form.
Synopsis
In Fabulous Small Jews, the best-selling author Joseph Epstein has produced eighteen charming, magical, and finely detailed stories. They are populated by lawyers, professors, scrap-iron dealers, dry cleaners, all men of a certain age who feel themselves adrift in the radically changed values of the day. Epstein's richly drawn characters are at various crossroads and turning points in their lives: bitter Seymour Hefferman, who anonymously sends scathing postcards to writers until he gets caught; Moe Bernstein, who, inspired by his grandson, decides to attend to his own health after long delay; divorcé Artie Glick, who wants to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Fabulous Small Jews is a marvelous collection from a master of the short form.
About the Author
Joseph Epstein was born and educated in Chicago, where, since 1974, he has been a lecturer in English and writing at Northwestern University. From 1975 to 1997 he was the editor of The American Scholar. His work has frequently appeared in The Best American Essays. "The modern essay," as Karl Shapiro has written, "has regained a good deal of its literary status in our time, much to the credit of Joseph Epstein."
Table of Contents
Felix Emeritus 1
Artie Glick in a Family Way 30
The Third Mrs. Kessler 44
Moe 63
Love and The Guinness Book of Records 86
Family Values 105
The Executor 125
Saturday Afternoon at the Zoo with Dad 143
Freddy Duchamp in Action 160
Don Juan Zimmerman 179
Dubinsky on the Loose 200
Coming In with Their Hands Up 216
The Masters Ring 232
Howies Gift 253
A Loss for Words 270
My Little Marjie 284
Postcards 301
Uncle Jack 322