Sinopsis

Set largely among the Jewish community of inter-war New York City, this is a beautifully-told collection of scenes from Morgenstern?s life. The tricky ground of writing the advice column for a provincial Yiddish daily; successes during, and hard times after, the Depression; a position at the top of his craft as a labour specialist in the New York City Yiddish press ? these and many more form a portrait of ?a fundamentally decent man in morally perplexing situations?. ?I?ve been working on a series of stories about the character I call ?my father? ? loosely based on my own father ? for about 30 years?I wondered if I could use the character in other situations. [One] story had begun with a spark of truth ? a story my father had told many times about a foolish man he?d once known ? and the spirit of my father.?All the stories in the series walk that precarious tightrope between memoir and fiction??I worked hard, with the stories? structure and a sort of old-fashioned expository...