Rabbi Benjamin Kaplan's mother is doing strange things. She's stripping
off her clothes in public, strolling through cemeteries, sneaking into men's
rooms, swearing at long-time clients, and laughing at her daughter-in-law's
miscarriages. When, to Benjamin's horror, she's diagnosed with a
ferociously malignant brain tumor, his real troubles begin. His fierce
grandmother berates him for not "taking care" of his mother; his wife,
obsessed with her current pregnancy, ignores him; and the ghostly voice
of a young female spirit haunts him.
Review: Laura Blumenfeld, author of Revenge: A Story of Hope ... a brilliant and deceptively complex story ...
Barry Werth, author of The Scarlet Professor
If Woody Allen were a fortyish rabbi with a Talmudic bent, he'd write like Phil Graubart.
Thane Rosenbaum, the author of The Golems of Gotham and Second Hand Smoke
A wonderful, readable novel that embraces both the spiritual and the real world with grace and tenderness
Bio: PHILIP GRAUBART is education director of The National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. His previous books include My Dinner with Michael Jackson and Planet of the Jews. He lives in Northampton, MA with his wife Susan and their two children Ilan and Benjamin.
