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Published Mar 2019
224 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The Pulitzer finalist delivers his best work yet - a brilliant, streamlined comic novel, reminiscent of early Philip Roth and of his own most masterful stories, about a son's failure to say Kaddish for his father.
Larry is an atheist in a family of orthodox Memphis Jews. When his father dies, it is his responsibility as the surviving son to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months. To the horror and dismay of his mother and sisters, Larry refuses - thus imperiling the fate of his father's soul. To appease them, and in penance for failing to mourn his father correctly, he hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to recite the daily 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 humor, on the conflict between religious and secular worlds, and the hypocrisies that run through both. A novel about atonement; about spiritual redemption; and about the soul-sickening temptations of the internet, which, like God, is everywhere.
"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
"Englander is mischievously hilarious, nightmarish, suspenseful, inquisitive, and deliriously tender in this concentrated tale of tradition and improvisation, faith and love." - Booklist
"Again, Englander demonstrates his skill at placing timeless concerns of Judaism in sharply modern circumstances. This one feels oddly preachy, though." - Kirkus
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Photo: Elena Seibert
Nathan Englander's most recent novel is kaddish.com, out March 26, 2019. He is also the author of the Dinner at the Center of the Earth, the collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, as well as the internationally bestselling story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, and the novel The Ministry of Special Cases (all published by Knopf/Vintage). He was the 2012 recipient of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for What We Talk About. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Washington Post, as well as The O. Henry Prize Stories and numerous editions of The Best American Short Stories, including 100 Years of the Best ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Nathan Englander's Website
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