kaddish.com

1

Mirrors covered and front door ajar, collar torn and sporting a shadow of beard, Larry leans against the granite top of his sister s fancy kitchen island. He says, Everyone s staring at me. All of your friends.

That s what people do, Dina tells him. They come, they say kind things, they feel uncomfortable, and they stare.

It s only hours after the funeral and, honestly, Larry hates himself for bringing it up. He really thought nothing could add to the despair of his father s loss. But this, this quiet, muttering stream of well-wishers has made it, for Larry, all the worse.

What he s taking issue with is the look that he s getting. It s not the usual pained nod one naturally offers. Larry s convinced there s a bite to it condemning.

He doesn t know how he ll survive a week trapped in his sister s home, in his sister s community, when every time one of the visitors glances over, Larry feels himself appraised.

And so he keeps raising his hand to the top of his head, check­ing for the yarmulke, sitting there like a hubcap for all its emo­tional weight. Its absence at his own father s shivah would be the same as standing naked before them.

Sneaked off into the kitchen with his sister, their first moment alone, Larry unloads his complaints in a hiss.

Tell them, he says, to stop looking my way.

At a condolence call? You want them not to look at the Dina pauses. What are we, the condoled? The aggrieved?

We are the grievances.

The mourners! she says. You want them not to show that they care?

I want them not to judge me just because I left their stupid world.

Dina laughs, her first since they put their father into the ground.

This is so like you, his sister tells him. To make it negative, to complicate what can t be any more simple. This bitterness in the face of what is pure niceness is on you.

On me? Are you kidding? Are you really saying that today?

You know that I am, little brother. I love you,

Nathan Englander is the author of the story collections For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, an international best seller, and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, and the novels The Ministry of Special Cases and Dinner at the Center of the Earth. His books have been translated into twenty-two languages. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Award, the Frank O Connor International Short Story Award, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. His play, The Twenty-Seventh Man, premiered at the Public Theater in 2012. He is Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter.

A rare blessing . . . a smart and witty novel . . . infused with delight. The Washington Post

Tender, wry and entertaining. . . . Englander s trademark humor is on display, but most striking and moving about kaddish.com is the unabashed sweetness of a son s longing for a father. The New York Times Book Review

Satirical, inventive, and brimming with gallows humor, this novel s whip-smart look at the clash of religious and secular worlds showcases Englander at his best. Esquire
 
Ingenious. Houston Chronicle
 
A wonderfully nimble performance. . . .  kaddish.com smuggles profound moral questions under the dress of its light and diverting story. The Wall Street Journal

[A] poignant coming-to-understanding about grief, the meaning of tradition, and love between fathers and sons. Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
[A] delight of a novel. . . . A marvelous comic fable. . . . Englander s expansive imagination is such that he can convincingly write the part of a secular Jewish hipster and a born-again Jew - and do it with the Yiddish inflections of a Borscht Belt comedian. Associated Press
 
  A rollicking, generous-hearted tale of faith, identity and family. . . . Englander s best novel so far. Financial Times
 
Tantalizing. . . . Englander s prose is always sprightly. He makes it easy to turn the page. The Forward
 
With his usual wit and irreverence . . . Nathan Englander spins out a tale. . . . There s still a good deal of tongue-in-cheek humor in the story that follows . . . but it s also an earnest look at belief, at ritual, at mourning, and at family ties. Vanity Fair
 
kaddish.com is funny but also profound, a saga of spiritual transformation. . . . Amid the chaos in which we all live nowadays, [the novel] is a bright light in a dark world. Jewish Journal
 
[There is] a hum of suspense behind this slim tale that belies its subject. Vulture
 
Simultaneously humorous and