Golem Song

by Estrin, Marc

• ISBN13: 9781932961232
• ISBN10: 1932961232
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-01
• Publisher: Unbridled Books

Summary

By some incalculable force of human attraction, Alan Krieger has two lovers.A man of his girth and compulsion, a man who cannot stop talking and who believes the world to be completely irrational, should not take one companion for granted, much less two. Women who can tolerate his anger, his obsessions, and his antic clowning all at the same time are not easy to come by.But when the thought arises in Alan that he's been chosen” to deliver Jewish America from the threat of Anti-Semitism, then all his connections to reality fall away, including those to his lovers and his family. Recalling the folktale of the Golem-the Frankensteinian giant of clay that saved the Jews in 16th Century Prague-Alan lays out a plan of attack and then sets to making the most outrageous of preparations in the culture wars, in New York City at the turn of the millennium.Like each of the acclaimed Estrin novels that have preceded it, Golem Song is an allusive, manic, and wildly comic approach to some of the most serious and difficult cultural questions of our time.

Table of Contents

april
1. St. Krieger's 911	3	(10)
2. Notes from Underground, and Over	13	(9)
3. This Is the Bread of Affliction	22	(14)
4. Bei Ursula, or Shiksa Schicksal	36	(28)
5. Krieger Domesticus	64	(9)
may
6. How Could Anyone Named Martha Nussbaum Look Like That?	73	(9)
7. Mothers Day Night	82	(19)
june
8. Not a Very Good Patient	101	(7)
Paper Trail 1: Vital Signs	105	(3)
9. Listen to that Long Snake Moan	108	(12)
Paper Trail 2: First Epistle of Ma to the Floridians	117	(3)
10. St. Adolf's 911	120	(12)
Paper Trail 3: Memo to His Colleagues in the Emergency Department, 1997	128	(4)
11. Goldtooth Bites	132	(25)
Paper Trail 4: Application to the NYU School of Nursing, 1984	149	(8)
July
12. Independence Day: Rallies in Black, White, and Blue	157	(21)
13. Philosophy in a New Key	178	(21)
Paper Trail 5: Ursula's Prager Tagebuch	192	(7)
August
14. August 6: The Bomb Drops. Bye, Ursula.	199	(12)
15. The Golem of Pelham Parkway	211	(17)
16. The Jewish Child's Book of Cognitive Dissonance	228	(5)
17. Shrinking	233	(5)
18. The Jewish Question	238	(15)
Paper Trail 6: Answer to a Personal Ad in the New York Review	246	(7)
September
19. September 10: Happy Birthday to Who	253	(22)
20. Alan Awake	275	(12)
October
21. A Walk on the Wild Side: Celebrating Zelenka's 317th Birthday	287	(18)
22. Ritual Bath	305	(8)
Paper Trail 7: His Suicide Note, Just in Case	312	(1)
23. Kristallnacht on the Golem Heights: A Night of Faith and Infinite Resignation	313	(36)
24. Hip Hop	349
Paper Trail 8: A Poem Dated 11/99 Found in a Desk Drawer	352

Excerpts

Ecstatic discharge from the nether regions of the downtown express as it disappeared into darkness. Old Sparky, Alan thought, the festival of lights come round for Passover. The uptown platform—his—was filling up with huddled masses yearning to go home and watch TV.What a card, old God. Execute all those lil Egyptian firstborns? For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, I and not an intermediary—the Big Ham. He could have had Jews avenge themselves. But no. No Jewish Fists allowed. Why? Afraid of His People punching themselves in the face? Punching Him in the Face? He kept everyone that night in the dark, without responsibility or blame for all those little corpses.What the …Alan gawked at the lipstick kiss on his shoulder, and gazed back at the poster he had been leaning on. A blond male model, shot head-first recumbent in his briefs, foreshortened, looking for all the world like a god on a slab, featuring a pudendal mountain under pesticide-free cotton. At the peak of the mount, as if planted by Sir Edmund Hilary’s wife herself, a full-mouthed press of lipstick, yum. This was the attestation that had transferred itself (less passionately) to Alan’s shoulder. Sex in the age of mechanical reproduction.“Gaak,” he mugged, and did his best to undo the affection with a handkerchief still wet with the tears of Thomas J. Brown. He only made things worse. Yet damn! he was aroused.What am I gonna tell my little poopchen?Tell her the truth, Alan.She’ll never believe me. She’ll think I’m two-timing her.She’ll believe you, she’ll believe you. Who would kiss you on the shoulder?The midget I’m going out with?A downtown train pulled in, filled up, and went sparking away toward West Fourth. Alan walked to the edge of the platform to peer into the darkness for his uptown express. The Cyclopean eye was not yet visible.Look at all that shit down in the tracks. Paper cups and plastic bags and shards of … Shards! Sparks and shards! Chin up, Alan, for even here is the Lord.He turned to the fourteen-year-old Puerto Rican standing to his left.“Buenos dias, muchacho. Do you know about the sparks and shards of God?”“No man, never heard of em.”The kid put half-a-dozen would-be passengers between himself and Alan.“Even down on that rat-infested track …” Alan began his lecture to no one in particular.And he jumped back from the brink. The uptown express had snuck up, invading his kabbalah space. The crowd surged toward the narrow doors, gathering him into itself, squeezing him along as one might a molecule of Pepsodent.“Ah, Truth,” Alan sighed. “Rush hour on a New York subway!”

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Excerpted from Golem Song by Marc Estrin
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.