Jonah and Sarah

by Shraer-Petrov, David; Shrayer, Maxim

• ISBN13: 9780815607649
• ISBN10: 0815607644
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr

Summary

In "Jonah and Sarah, love, talent, and magic oppose--and sometimes vanquish--anti-Semitism, totalitarianism, and vulgarity. From the deceptively simple narratives "Apples Cider Vinegar and "A Hurricane Named Bob to the surrealist tale "Dismemberers and the magical "Jonah and Sarah and "The Lanskoy Road, the tempo fluctuates, but throughout, David Shrayer-Petrov seamlessly preserves familiar voices. The stories have a genuine feel for setting and eposch--Soviet stories work as narratives of everyday life, while the American segments offer an accurate sense of an emigre's alienation. Life all good works of fiction, these stories take on a mythic quality and transcend time and place. Each carries and commnicates to reader an aura of mystery, the enigma of love, and a meeting of Jewish past and present. Whether he invokes lyrical dialogue, gentle irony, or sharp polemical discourse, Shrayer-Petrov shows that he is a powerful presence in Russian and Jewish literature. For those interested in fiction about new immigrants to America or in the psychology of Jews in the

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Preface To Be Ripped Away	ix
Apple Cider Vinegar	1	(11)
Rusty	12	(11)
The Lanskoy Road	23	(8)
Young Jews and Two Gymnasium Girls	31	(7)
He, She and the Others	38	(14)
Jonah and Sarah	52	(14)
In the Reeds	66	(12)
Tsukerman and His Children	78	(12)
Dismemberers	90	(7)
David and Goliath	97	(12)
Hurricane Bob	109	(31)
Hände Hoch!	140	(13)
Old Writer Foreman	153	(20)
Afterword David Shrayer-Petrov, a Jewish Writer in Russia and America
MAXIM D. SHRAYER	173	(10)
About the Translators	183