“Englander portrays that frantic quest–one that jeopardizes Shuli’s marriage, his job, even his sanity—with curiosity and deep sympathy, evoking a response that transcends the boundaries of any particular faith.”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

This is the story of a man named Larry. At the beginning of the book his father had just died. Larry’s family is very religious but he isn’t. When he is told by his sister that he must say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead for eleven months he balks at it, and instead discovers a web site on line where he can hire a young man to do the praying for him.

The story than jumps ahead many years later and Larry has now returned to the faith, becoming a rabbi in his own right.
He now has misgivings about the way he handled his responsibilities in the past so,now he is attempting to,track the young man down who prayed for his father in his stead.

The story of how Larry tracks down the location of the website and his adventure in attempting to recapture his responsibilities make up the rest of the narrative and as we go along with Larry, we start to feel just what he is going through. A well written, short book at 204 pages, Englander captures the war inside of Larry to do the right thing perfectly. My only problem with the book is that it is filled with Jewish words that aren’t easy to interpret. Obviously, someone of the Jewish faith will probably get a little bit more out of the book than I did, but it is still an enjoyable read.

Recommended.

 

Reviewed by:

Richard Franco

Added 6th July 2019

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Richard Franco