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| AUTHOR: | Carl Friedman, Jeannette K. Ringold |
| CATEGORY: | Book |
| MANUFACTURER: | Persea Books |
| ISBN: | 0892552328 |
| TYPE: | Dutch (Language) Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Fiction - General, Jews, Short Stories (single author), Short stories |
| MEDIA: | Hardcover |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
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Customer Reviews of The Gray Lover: Three Stories
Well-woven tales of survival As I read this book, I experienced an unusually strange feeling. I could almost hear the voice of the author reading her tales of survival to me. I wanted to cry out:"Read them again." She is such a skilled author and manages to write startling stories with utter restraint. Carl Friedman shows deep affection and respect for her characters.
"The Gray Lover" consists of three short stories that deal with Jewish traditions of mourning, reverence for learning and dangers of fanaticism. The title story takes the readers back to the 19th century, and we become voyeurs to the life in a small shtetl. The rabbi decrees that someone in the village must look after Chaya; he is an elderly widower, very poor and sick. This tale embodies the essence of the stories of Isaac B. Singer and Sholom Aleichem. However, the ending is pure O.Henry.
The second story centers on a highly knowledgeable group of Holocaust survivors and their offspring. They live in Holland, and this is the author's homeland. One couple's son changes from a highly lovable little boy into a thoroughly despicable teen-aged religious fanatic. The parent's friends compare his evolvement to Gregor Samsa's change in "Metamorphosis". Miriam is the story's narrator. Her own parents observed shiva for her, when she decided to become a journalist. Judaism and Christianity share the basic ten commandments, but for Jews alone, there are many more strictures. Even Jewish skeptics gain strength by observing many of the additional laws.
In the third story:"Bette" we learn how two grown children share the burden of their mother's dying days. This woman developed her appreciation of ordinary activities as a result of her imprisonment in Auschwitz. One son does not have the courage to participate in his mother's death.
The book touches lightly on pogroms and the Holocaust. One of the great wonders of the last century was the strong will-to-live of the survivors. The two modern stories in this collection place Carl Friedman in the same league with the best of modern Jewish writers