Kaddish.com
Published on 25. June 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-4746-1103-9 (ISBN)
Description
Larry is the secular son in a family of Orthodox Brooklyn Jews. When his father dies, it's his responsibility to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months.
To the horror and dismay of his sister, Larry refuses - imperilling the fate of his father's soul. To appease her, Larry hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to recite the prayer and shepherd his father's soul safely to rest.
This is Nathan Englander's freshest and funniest work to date - a satire that touches, lightly and with unforgettable humour, on the conflict between religious and secular worlds, and the hypocrisies that run through both.
To the horror and dismay of his sister, Larry refuses - imperilling the fate of his father's soul. To appease her, Larry hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to recite the prayer and shepherd his father's soul safely to rest.
This is Nathan Englander's freshest and funniest work to date - a satire that touches, lightly and with unforgettable humour, on the conflict between religious and secular worlds, and the hypocrisies that run through both.
Reviews / Votes
The funniest Jewish-American writing today... Jewish life is depicted with the illuminating intimacy of an insider. -- Tanjil Rashid * THE TIMES * Echoes of Philip Roth resound in a streamlined, compassionate exploration of faith and purpose. -- Hephzibah Anderson * MAIL ON SUNDAY * A wry, whip-smart comedy about Jewish identity... A clever novel that finds an innovative way to stage the clash between sincere religious conviction and the sceptic's fear that it's a gigantic con trick, with airtime given to both points of view. -- Anthony Cummins * DAILY MAIL * A rollicking, generous-hearted tale of faith, identity and family... certainly Englander's best novel so far. -- Alex Preston * FINANCIAL TIMES * Bitingly funny -- Andrew Holgate * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * Satirical, inventive, and brimming with gallows humor, this novel's whip-smart look at the clash of religious and secular worlds showcases Englander at his best * ESQUIRE * Englander is mischievously hilarious, nightmarish, suspenseful, inquisitive, and deliriously tender in this concentrated tale of tradition and improvisation, faith and love. * BOOKLIST * An excellent comic dissection of Jewish-American life... This novel reads like Chaim Potok filtered through the sensibility of Mel Brooks. Englander writes cogently about Jewish-American assimilation, and, in his practiced hands, he makes Shuli's journey, both outer and inner, a simultaneously humorous and deeply moving one. * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * A lean, keen-witted meditation on faith and filial loyalty * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY * A reminder of Englander's extraordinary skill ... What a rare blessing to find a smart and witty novel about the unexpected ways religious commitment can fracture a life - and restore it. * WASHINGTON POST * Englander's expansive imagination is such that he can convincingly write the part of a secular Jewish hipster and a born-again Jew - and do it with the Yiddish inflections of a Borscht Belt comedian. A delight of a novel. * AP NEWS * kaddish.com is funny but also profound ... Amid the chaos in which we all live nowadays, "Kaddish.com" is a bright light in a dark world. * JEWISH JOURNAL * Nathan Englander brilliantly tells this modern folk tale, and, honestly, I could not put the book down until I had read it completely * SAN DIEGO JEWISH WORLD * Englander portrays Shuli's frantic quest--one that jeopardizes Shuli's marriage, his job, even his sanity--with curiosity and deep sympathy, evoking a response that transcends the boundaries of any particular faith. * SHELF AWARENESS * A satirical take on God, family, and the Internet that has been compared to early Philip Roth * THE MILLIONS * Englander is skilled at creating moments of incredible truth, and at writing morality without moralizing * LITHUB * Englander pulls it off with his adroit storytelling skills and comic brio -- Jude Cook * THE I PAPER *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Orion Publishing Co
Dimensions
Height: 129 mm
Width: 195 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
202 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4746-1103-9 (9781474611039)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Nathan Englander
Kaddish.com
E-Book
03/2019
1st Edition
Weidenfeld and Nicholson
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Nathan Englander is the author of the story collections For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, an international best seller, and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, and the nov-els The Ministry of Special Cases and Dinner at the Center of the Earth. His books have been translated into twenty-two languages. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Let-ters, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. He is Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter.