Fabulous Small Jews

Rating:
Summary: Like The Title--Distatseful
Review: A small work of distasteful stories that exploits the underbelly of human experience. This is a book for the dispirited and those without hope. It is no more than a breadcrumb trail of dispair masquerading as nourishment--it substitutes irony for redemption, craft for insight. The title tells it all-small stories of a self-hating author. If you want to be depressed and pretend you are thinking, better get a mediocre bottle of scotch and smack it a against your head instead of spending time with this little book.

Rating:
Summary: fabulous short stories
Review: Although there are 15 stories listed in the table of contents, it's impossible to come up with a real total of all the narratives in Joseph Epstein's Fabulous Small Jews. Epstein uses stories for every possible function: to set a mood (a joke), to set a place (childhood memory), to describe a character (every character in this book receives a short bio). Reading Epstein is a little like wandering through a city without a map; one story ends and another begins and, slowly but surely, something of human experience becomes evident. Like Homer or the Brothers Grim, Epstein's stories read like they've accumulated through a dense oral culture before transcription. Of course they haven't, and that's one of the reasons this book is so good.

The other reason is that Epstein never forgets that, willful as people may be, human agency is only truly tested by fate, by what we never see coming around the corner till it changes our lives. Fabulous Small Jews revolves around some of the most difficult situations fate can come up with: bereavement, divorce, cancer, alzheimers, weariness of life. It's a messy world, and the only redeeming feature is that Epstein's characters never stop trying to do the right thing, never stop trying to wrest a livable destiny from a cruel fate. The fact that they manage to do just that in credible ways is the hallmark of stories, not of life; of imagination, not reality. It's also an indicator of Epstein's generosity--both toward his characters and his readers. Dignified resolutions restore our ability to make hard decisions with courage, clarity, and hope, but that doesn't necessarily make them happy endings. Luckily, Joseph Epstein knows the difference.




Rating:
Summary: Bellow it's not
Review: How I Spent my Summer Vacation...well, at the top of the list will be reading this fine collection of short stories, almost all of which take place in Chicago. Indeed, I grew up next door to a building in which one of the characters lived. I was moved by this collection of stories about mostly middle and late aged Jews. I'm much younger then the subjects of this stories, but I was moved anyway. It is beautiful collection about religion, love, and a person's place in the world. It is a collection that I won't soon forget. Kudos to Epstein for getting the small Chicago details right--it just makes the stories richer. I've already lent this book out--I may never see it again! I loved it!

Rating:
Summary: Almost perfect
Review: I've long enjoyed reading Joseph Epstein's essays, even if his political sensibilities diverge from my own. He has a great command of language and literature. It reflects a lifetime of learning as well as contemplating his environs and his craft. Among other things that one can say about Mr. Epstein is that he is a literary geographer of deserved renown, especially when his landscape is metropolitan Chicago.

Multiple friends commended this book to me. Some of them were attracted by its Chicago take, others by its Jewish theme. In my estimation, one of the great strengths are the class distinctions that Mr. Epstein uncovers (mercilessly).

I didn't like everything about this book yet I was enthralled by it. Clearly some of it is darker than I anticipated. Yet much of it is superbly real (translate as close to home). I could think about my own life, my own family, my own friends, and my own experiences, identifying various epsisodes with Epstein's well-devised tragically comical characterizations.

The more I read, the more I was drawn in. Don't put this book down because you are taken aback by some of its earliest chapters. In the end, you will find your literary reward, I can assure you.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Small Stories, Almost
Review: The title was in poor enough taste to draw my attention. The writing quickly drew me in. And once drawn in, I found it hard to put this book down. What is it? A collection of dark, brooding stories about old guys (mostly) facing loss, disillusionment and despair. Most of these guys have never had a meaningful long-term relationship. If they married, it didn't work out. If they had children, they typically abandoned them. If they did have good marriages, they lost them.

Most of the characters are old or aging men, most of the action takes place in Chicago. Most are Jewish, in a Seinfeldian, cultural sense, and have little relationship to Judaism, the religion. They are often uncomfortable with or embarrassed by their Jewish origins. Still, they display that typical Jewish penchant for ruminating, philosophizing, wondering who they really are.

Author Joseph Epstein is an extremely talented writer. He does a great job with these stories, injecting bits of manic humor into these otherwise gloomy tales. Still, there is something troubling about the collection, something that leaves--well--a certain unpleasant aftertaste. The stories that start out with so much punch, that are so entertaining, almost always seem to end with a whimper, with nothing learned, nothing gained, nothing to hope for. Sometimes those endings seemed contrived, as though the author simply didn't know how to end the story.

Still, even with its shortcomings, this is a most entertaining collection, and I can certainly recommend it. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Rating:
Summary: Epstein at his very best
Review: What's not to love?? Humor, wit, pathos. Epstein delivers. The wonderfully written short stories are as relevant to the human conditon as they are to the Chicago Jewish experience.
If you liked the Goldin Boys, you will definitely like this one.