Call it Kmart magical realism.-Washington Post Book World

Call it Kmart magical realism.-Washington Post Book World

This is the first collection to appear in twenty years from one of America's best short story writers. His thirteen stories are marvelous—funny, heartbreaking, and wise by turns, and on occasion all three at once. Praise for The Jew of Home Depot and Other Stories: "Thank you, Mr. Apple! There's an art to writing a sad story that's also fun to read... Many of Apple's stories are heartbreaking, but there's hardly a page that doesn't yield a smile at one line or another." -New York Times Book Review "When it comes to Max Apple, what's not to like?... Apple is never ferocious, never crabby and rarely sentimental. He does not dislike his characters, and he refuses to condescent to them." -Foreword "Delightful, utterly cynicism-free stories collected here... celebrate serendipity... If a lot of contemporary short fiction falls into the category dubbed 'Kmart realism,' Apple needs his own category. Call it Kmart magical realism." -Washington Post Book World

Set in 1920s Chicago, the short novel Yudl follows its eponymous protagonist, a middle-aged editor at a left-leaning newspaper called The Yiddish Courier. Yudl and his wife have decided to become landlords, purchasing a vacant lot and hiring an acquaintance—aptly named Mason—to oversee the construction of their future apartment building. However, delays in the construction leave Yudl and his family without a home, forcing them to stay with Mason and his family until the construction is finally complete. Told with wry wit and a masterful sensibility for metaphor, the story explores gender, Zionism, and the immigrant experience in the US. The selection of short stories that follow the novel in this volume were selected by the author from her deathbed during her last weeks and then hours on earth. Silbert's graceful short stories focus on the family, allowing the reader glimpses of a child's happiness, the cripplingly contradictory demands of femininity, the complexity of grief, and a sustained meditation on life and death.

Violent rabbis, lovelorn wives, a busy Grim Reaper, shame-filled simians, and one seriously angry deity populate this humorous and disquieting collection. Shalom Auslander's stories in Beware of God have the mysterious punch of a dream. They are wide ranging and inventive: A young Jewish man's inexplicable transformation into a very large, blond, tattooed goy ends with a Talmudic argument over whether or not his father can beat his unclean son with a copy of the Talmud. A pious man having a near-death experience discovers that God is actually a chicken, and he's forced to reconsider his life -- and his diet. At God's insistence, Leo Schwartzman searches Home Depot for supplies for an ark. And a young boy mistakes Holocaust Remembrance Day as emergency preparedness training for the future. Auslander draws upon his upbringing in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York State to craft stories that are filled with shame, sex, God, and death, but also manage to be wickedly funny and poignant.

The Midwest has produced a robust literary heritage. Its authors have won half of the nation's Nobel Prizes for Literature plus a significant number of Pulitzer Prizes. This volume explores the rich racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the region. It also contains entries on 35 pivotal Midwestern literary works, literary genres, literary, cultural, historical, and social movements, state and city literatures, literary journals and magazines, as well as entries on science fiction, film, comic strips, graphic novels, and environmental writing. Prepared by a team of scholars, this second volume of the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature is a comprehensive resource that demonstrates the Midwest's continuing cultural vitality and the stature and distinctiveness of its literature.

A fresh, compelling collection of stories by a serious new voice on the literary scene. Winner of the Hornblower Award by the New York Society Library, Honorable Mention for the International Latino Book Awards: Best Collection of Short Stories by Empowering Latino Futures New York City's Staten Island is often described as the forgotten borough. But with Staten Island Stories, Claire Jimenez shines a spotlight on the imagined lives of the islanders. Inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, this collection of loosely linked tragicomic short stories travels across time to explore defining moments in the island's history, from the 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash and the New York City blackout to the growing opioid and heroin crisis, Eric Garner's murder, and the 2016 presidential election.