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 style, to make them feel like memoir – like truth.”
Authors
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- C813/.54
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- General Note
- Short stories Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9781550504767 9781550504866
- LCCN
- PR9199.3.M354
- LCCN Item number
- B66 2012eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (250 p.)
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00228747 (OCoLC)793385399 (CaOOCEL)443628
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Front Cover 1
- Half-title Page 2
- Title Page 4
- Publication Information 5
- Dedication 6
- Table of Contents 8
- The Proposition 10
- The Farmhand 26
- The Wisdom of Solomon 50
- A False Moustache 68
- Feathers and Blood 88
- A Romantic Secret 114
- A Distant Relation 130
- Lettres d'amour 146
- A Bargain 162
- Music by Rodgers, Lyrics by Hart 174
- A Book of Great Worth 188
- The Barking Dog 208
- The Family Circle 224
- Afterword: Listening to My Father 248
- Acknowledgements 260
- About the Author 262
- Back Cover 265
