From Abraham to Allegra
American Jewish Fiction: A Century of Stories edited by Gerald Shapiro
(Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press. 445 pages, $16.95)
By Haim Chertok
I realized this anthology had me hooked when my mind began emitting intratextual feelers like multi-colored tendrils across the decades and pages to link, say, domestic perturbation in Tillie Olsen's "Tell Me a Riddle" to its similitude in Francine Prose's "Electricity" or riffs on self-alienation in Bruce Jay Friedman's "When You're Excused, You're Excused" to similar themes in Robin Hemley's "The 19th Jew."
The habit of a lifetime decrees that the pleasures of drawing (imposing?) such continuities swell into an urgency best discharged by organizing the "material" into a one-semester, three-unit course. Say, "The Grouchos and The Seinfelders: Two Schools of American Jewish Fiction." (Is anyone listening?) The Marxists, captained probably by Philip Roth, are characterized by outrageousness and sheer exuberance. To lead the more formalist, predominantly feminine forces I'd nominate Grace Paley.
Starting with enduring Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yezierska narratives about the joys and sufferings of turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants in New York, trusty guide Gerald Shapiro then climbs noble Mount Bellow, traverses treacherous Ozick Pass, fords the rapids of the frothy Roth River to lead us safely to the present moment: a bravura performance by former wunderkind Allegra Goodman (now 32). In all, twenty-three American Jewish waystations get visited.
Wisely, Shapiro does spin editorial wheels through profitless ruts of defining what is (or is not) "a Jewish story." We simply participate in a celebration of extraordinary talent that puts paid to lrving Howe's 1977 assessment that the condition of American Jewish writing was terminal, its demise imminent. One astonishing story, "The Revisionist" by Helen Schulman, a young writer previously unknown to me, singlehandedly demolishes Howe's dour hypothesis. Her moving account of Hershleder's inability "to move on" after the collapse of his marriage seems to me as finely rendered as Delmore Schwartz's "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities," still standard bearer for highest achievement in Jewish American short fiction.
Any quibbles or quarrels? Inevitably, several seem warranted. Not only is "The Lady of the Lake" one of Bernard Malamud's most claustrophobic tales, but its narrative plumbing is a veritable Centre Pompidou: so unconcealed that any discerning reader would trip over it. Any of twenty other Malamud stories come to mind that, I think, would have served better. The omissions of Mailer and Salinger are, for different reasons, easily justifiable, but the absence of Frederick Busch is, I think, a serious lapse. On the other hand, what in the world is a Steve Stern, here represented by an epigonic, embarrassingly kitschy selection, doing in the company of Olsen, Ozick, Bellow, and Singer?
But surely I should close less with cavil than KVELL. In the classroom, bedroom, or the beach, Gerald Shapiro's cavalcade of American Jewish writing talent will not disappoint.
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