Synopses & Reviews
Her knowledge of the Bible is evident and her creativity shines through as she weaves nine thoughtful and layered accounts of distant, complicated times.”
Publisher's Weekly
Reminiscent of Anita Diamants The Red Tent. . . . These beautifully written stories feel like meeting Eve, Lots wife, and many other compelling characters for the first time.” LAUREL CORONA, author of The Mapmakers Daughter and The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldis Venice
Stunning.” MOLLY ANTOPOL, author of The UnAmericans
Gorgeous and captivating.” DARA HORN, author of A Guide for the Perplexed and The World to Come
Marvelous.” MICHELLE HUNEVEN, author of Off Course and Blame
What struck me most about these stories is their clear, assured confidenceas if Michal Lemberger had pulled apart some of the lines in the old story, spied a new story tucked in there way off in a corner, shimmied in a fishhook and pulled it out.” AIMEE BENDER, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Lemberger liberates the voices that are trapped beneath the [biblical] text . . . with artistry and erudition.” RABBI DAVID WOLPE, Rabbi of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles and author of Why Faith Matters
Eve considers motherhood.
Miriam tends Moses.
Lots wife looks back.
Vividly reimagined with startling contemporary clarity, Michal Lembergers debut collection of short stories gives voice to silent, oft-marginalized biblical women: their ambitions, their love for their children, their values, their tremendous struggles and challenges. Informed by Lembergers deep knowledge of the Bible, each of these nine stories story recasts a biblical saga from the perspective of a pivotal woman.
Michal Lembergers nonfiction and journalism have appeared in Slate, Salon, Tablet, and other publications, and her poetry has been published in a number of print and online journals. A story from After Abel, her first collection of fiction, was featured in Lilith Magazine. Lemberger holds an MA and PhD in English from UCLA and a BA in English and religion from Barnard College. She has taught the Hebrew Bible as Literature at UCLA and the American Jewish University. She was born and raised in New York and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.
Review
Jewish Book Council Spring 2015 Jewish Book Preview” featured titleOriginal and thought-provoking.” KIRKUS REVIEWS
Fresh and engaging.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After Abel and Other Stories will appeal to readers with even the most basic introduction to the Biblical canon, but especially those whose imaginations are piqued by the mystery of an untold story.” JEWISH BOOK WORLD
Lemberger is a wonderful writerempathetic and heartbreaking, generous and fierce. The searing beauty of these stories is matched only by the passion and intelligence of the women who inhabit these pages. After Abel is a stunning book.” MOLLY ANTOPOL, author of The UnAmericans
What struck me most about these stories is their clear, assured confidenceas if Lemberger had pulled apart some of the lines in the old story, spied a new story tucked in there way off in a corner, shimmied in a fishhook and pulled it out.” AIMEE BENDER, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Updating the midrash tradition for twenty-first-century readers, Lemberger brings Eveand eight other biblical womenback to life in stories endowing scriptural narratives with new imaginative resonance. . . . This provocative reimagining of biblical history will attract many.” BOOKLIST
[Michal Lembergers] exercise in empathy is more than a literary conceit. . . . She has given [these biblical women] a new birth as figures of flesh and blood, heart and brain.” JONATHAN KIRSCH, Jewish Journal book editor and author of The Harlot by the Side of the Road (from the foreword)
This is a beautiful book of modern midrashthe ancient Jewish tradition of telling the stories between the Hebrew Bibles lines. The women I thought I knew have come alive in these gorgeous and captivating stories, and they are unlike anything I expected. Their bravery and radiance remained in my mind long after I finished reading.” DARA HORN, author of A Guide for the Perplexed and The World to Come
After Abel brings biblical women from the sidelines to the center of the story, in a compelling narrative reminiscent of Anita Diamants The Red Tent. These beautifully written stories feel like meeting Eve, Lots wife, and many other compelling characters for the first time.” LAUREL CORONA, author of The Mapmakers Daughter and The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldis Venice
The Bible is predominantly a set of books by and about men, with women usually mentioned only peripherally. In After Abel, Lemberger portrays biblical women in a way that makes them come alive as real people, with perspectives, concerns, and emotions of their own. Her modern midrash is true to all the biblical stories but enhances them in a way that I never thought possible. This may not have been how these biblical women actually thought and felt, but it probably was!” RABBI ELLIOT DORFF, Rector and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University
How shall we begin to think of women behind the stentorian voices of the men who rule the scriptures . . . who can possibly guess now what their real-time lives were like? Lemberger does a heroic job. . . . What she gives us is an idea of what real womenwomen not unlike usmight have felt and thought in those times.” MERRILL JOAN GERBER, author of The Hysterectomy Waltz and The Kingdom of Brooklyn
Lemberger, in After Abel, deepens our understanding of the stories we have heard many times and thought we knew. The women of the Bible come alive in all of their vulnerability and power. The stories in this book are a work of modern midrashso necessary and so beautifully done.” RABBI SUSAN GOLDBERG, Wilshire Boulevard Temple
Lembergers stories are marvelous compounds of scholarship, imagination and empathy. Brought to life with rich historical detail, these biblical women, sidelined and silenced for centuries, prove to be audacious, utterly relatable, and spellbinding companions.” MICHELLE HUNEVEN, author of Off Course and Blame
The stories in After Abel transport the reader into fully realized biblical landscapes. . . . Like the classical midrashist, Lemberger elaborates the spaces between the texts choices, and by giving fullness of life to female presences merely hinted at in the bible, she participates in the contemporary enterprise of bringing gender balance to the world of our mythic origins.” LORI LEFKOVITZ, Ruderman Professor of Jewish Studies, Northeastern University
Lemberger combines an insightful knowledge of biblical women and their stories with an acute ability to more fully imagine their lives in ways that feel true to the biblical text. She answers many of the questions readers have long wanted to know. What did Lots wife think about her husbands plan to offer his daughters to the men of Sodom? What about Hamans wife? . . . This is a great read and the perfect choice for book groups and sisterhoods of all sorts.” DR. ADRIANE LEVEEN, Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and author of Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers
Through intuition and art, Lemberger opens our hearts to the powerful women of the Bible. They come alive in her magical prose, and their wisdom, long stifled and marginalized, echoes across the millennia to warm our hearts and to illumine our turbulent age. They teach us not only how to survive, but how to thrive.” RABBI BRADLEY SHAVIT ARTSON, Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Deans Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University
A gorgeous book of inspired reimaginings, full of heartbreak and courage and piercing beauty.” BEN LOORY, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
With a delightful play of the imagination, Lemberger has brought to life biblical characters and episodes that the Bible authors never dreamed of, while remaining gracefully faithful to the cultural atmosphere of biblical times.” OSCAR MANDEL, author of Otherwise Fables
After Abel is a truly welcome addition to understanding what the Bible could mean by looking at a side of the story rarely considered: the story of women.” TAMMI J. SCHNEIDER, Professor of Religion and Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at Claremont Graduate University, and author of An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion
After Abel is a gem. For readers who enjoy the Bible as literature and compelling storytelling, Lembergers exploration of the biblical women who are mentioned but then left without their own narratives is welcome and deeply engaging.” SUSAN STRAIGHT, author of Between Heaven and Here and Highwire Moon
Lemberger liberates the voices that are trapped beneath the text. A reimagining of the biblical tales done with artistry and erudition.” RABBI DAVID WOLPE, Rabbi of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles and author of Why Faith Matters
Synopsis
A compelling collection of short stories that gives voice to pivotal female characters in the Bible.
Synopsis
Finalist, 2015 National Jewish Book Award Honorable Mention, Sophie Brody Medal, American Library Association
One of the Jewish Book Council's "15 fiction books that shaped Jewish literature in 2015"
Eve considers motherhood.
Miriam tends Moses.
Lot's wife looks back.
Vividly reimagined with startling contemporary clarity, Michal Lemberger's debut collection of short stories gives voice to silent, oft-marginalized biblical women: their ambitions, their love for their children, their values, their tremendous struggles and challenges. Informed by Lemberger's deep knowledge of the Bible, each of these nine stories story recasts a biblical saga from the perspective of a pivotal woman.
Michal Lemberger's nonfiction and journalism have appeared in Slate, Salon, Tablet, and other publications, and her poetry has been published in a number of print and online journals. A story from After Abel, her first collection of fiction, was featured in Lilith Magazine. Lemberger holds an MA and PhD in English from UCLA and a BA in English and religion from Barnard College. She has taught the Hebrew Bible as Literature at UCLA and the American Jewish University. She was born and raised in New York and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.
"Original and thought-provoking." --KIRKUS REVIEWS
"Lemberger imbues her characters with a consciousness that, although taking place in ancient times, seems contemporary, because she brings such empathy to her characters... It is this act of empathy that shines through.... an alternative dialogue that reminds us that it is the stories that we tell that are civilization's true heritage." -- FORBES
"Fresh and engaging." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Appeals to readers with even the most basic introduction to the Biblical canon, but especially those whose imaginations are piqued by the mystery of an untold story." --JEWISH BOOK WORLD
"Reminiscent of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. . . . These beautifully written stories feel like meeting Eve, Lot's wife, and many other compelling characters for the first time." --LAUREL CORONA, author of The Mapmaker's Daughter and The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice
"Stunning." --MOLLY ANTOPOL, author of The UnAmericans
"Gorgeous and captivating." --DARA HORN, author of A Guide for the Perplexed and The World to Come
"Marvelous." --MICHELLE HUNEVEN, author of Off Course and Blame
"What struck me most about these stories is their clear, assured confidence--as if Michal Lemberger had pulled apart some of the lines in the old story, spied a new story tucked in there way off in a corner, shimmied in a fishhook and pulled it out." --AIMEE BENDER, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Synopsis
Now, mother and mourner both, I finally understand. To be mother of the living is also to be mother to all the dead.
A compelling debut collection of stories that illuminate pivotal female Bible characters.
How did Eve feel about Cain's fratricide? What did Miriam think as she placed Moses in the reeds? After Abel voices silent, marginalized biblical women, providing a glimpse of their worldits landscapes, relationships, and laws.
Michal Lemberger's work has appeared in Lilith, Slate, Salon, and Tablet. She is on the faculty of American Jewish University, where she teaches the Hebrew Bible as literature.
Synopsis
Now, mother and mourner both, I finally understand. To be mother of the living is also to be mother to all the dead.
A compelling debut collection of stories that illuminate pivotal female Bible characters.
How did Eve feel about Cain's fratricide? What did Miriam think as she placed Moses in the reeds? What did Lots wife think and do after Lot offered their virgin daughters to strangers? Frankly feminist, Michal Lembergers stories give voice to silent, oft-marginalized biblical women: their ambition, their love for their children, their values, their tremendous struggles and challenges. Informed by her deep knowledge of the Bible, each of Lembergers stories vividly re-imagines a biblical saga from the perspective of a pivotal woman.
With a foreword by Jonathan Kirsch, author of A History of the End of the World and Moses: A Life.
Michal Lemberger's work has appeared in Lilith, Slate, Salon, and Tablet. She is on the faculty of American Jewish University, where she teaches the Hebrew Bible as literature.
About the Author
Author
Michal Lembergers nonfiction and journalism have appeared in
Slate,
Salon,
Tablet, and other publications, and her poetry has been published in a number of print and online journals. A story from
After Abel, her first collection of fiction, was featured in
Lilith Magazine. Lemberger holds an MA and PhD in English from UCLA and a BA in English and religion from Barnard College. She has taught the Hebrew Bible as Literature at UCLA and the American Jewish University. She was born and raised in New York and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.
Foreword contributor Jonathan Kirsch is the book editor of the Jewish Journal, a longtime book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, a guest commentator for NPR affiliates KCRW-FM and KPCC-FM in Southern California, and an Adjunct Professor on the faculty of New York Universitys Professional Publishing Program. He is the author of thirteen books, including the bestselling The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible. He lives in Los Angeles, California.