The Wrong Isbn Do Not Use - House Of Love And Prayer

(Hardback)

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" Tova Reich's verbal blade is amazingly, ingeniously, startlingly, all-consumingly, all-encompassingly, deservedly, and brilliantly savage."-Cynthia Ozick In this extraordinary collection of short fiction, Tova Reich dives deep into the world of Orthodox Jewry-a world that her stories, like the shows "Unorthodox" and "Shtisel," embrace with respect and affection while also poking at the faultlines in its unshakeable traditions. The eight stories collected in this volume are all populated by seekers-of holiness, illumination, liberation, meaning, love. Their journeys unfold in the U.S., Israel, Poland, China, often in the very heart of the Jewish world, and are rendered with an insider's authority. The narrative voice bringing all this to life has been described as fearlessly satiric and subversive, with a moral but not moralizing edge, equally alive to the sacred and the profane, comically absurd to the point of tragedy. From the opening story, "TheLostGirl" (winner of a National Magazine Award in Fiction) to "Dead Zone" in the closing pages of this collection, we are confronted with souls unable to rest, unable to find release, searching for their place in this life, and beyond. Between these two stories, we encounter a true believer seeking personal redemption in China ("Forbidden City"), and an aged woman longing at the end of her life to find a way back to her mother ("The Plot"). Three of the stories, "The Page Turner," "The Third Generation," and "Dedicated to the Dead," are animated by the long-term fallout from the Holocaust-generational trauma, abuse of memory, competitive victimization, and more. In the midst of all this is the story "The House of Love and Prayer," which, in its way, encompasses the entire spectrum. The novelist Howard Norman has said, "Few contemporary writers are truly original.Tova Reich is one of them." Read this book and discover her satiric genius.

Reviews

"Fearless, hysterically funny, and with the sharpest eye for truth and falsity, Tova Reich is a brilliant writer." Jonathan Safran Foer

"Moral, mordant, irreparably torn, Tova Reich is the conscience of the diasporaof all diasporasas she shows in her outstanding first collection of short fiction, The House of Love and Prayer." JoshuaCohen, author of Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, TheNetanyahus

"Reichs five novels . . . are volcanic satires of Jewish traditions and paradoxes, holy fools and wily wheelers and dealers.Her fervid, whirlwind yet pinpoint imagination and insights are potently distilled in her lacerating, often macabre, acidly funny short stories, collected here for the first time. . . .In these ingenious, disturbing, radically incisive, stinging, and hilarious tales, Reich wrestles with antisemitism, misogyny, deceit, profiteering, faith, and guilt. Donna Seaman, Booklist

Reichs trademark subjects and recognizable style fill the pages of The House of Love and Prayer and Other Stories, the publication of which marks the first time her short fiction has been gathered into book form. This much seems certain: IfReichs novels have provoked strong reactions in the past, this collection will fuel vivid conversations, too. Try it in your book clubif you dare. Moment magazine

Author Bio

TOVA REICH's most recent novel, Mother India (2018), was longlisted for the South Asia Literature Prize and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Other novels include Mara, Master of the Return, The Jewish War, My Holocaust, and One Hundred Philistine Foreskins. Her stories have appeared in the Atlantic, Harper's, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the National Magazine Award for Fiction, The Edward Lewis Wallant Book Award, and other prizes. She lives on the fringe of Washington, DC.