Promised Lands

by Derek Rubin (Editor)

Overview

This vibrant anthology showcases new, unpublished short stories by a rapidly growing crop of highly talented young Jewish American fiction writers. Cohering around the core Jewish theme of the Promised Land, all the stories were written especially for this volume. With the kind of depth and imagination that only fiction allows, they offer striking variations on the multivalent theme of the Promised Land and how it continues to shape the collective consciousness of contemporary American Jews. This anthology provides a rich reading experience and a unique window onto Jewish American life and culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century. A scholarly introduction by Derek Rubin provides literary context, discusses the organization of the volume, and illuminates expected and unexpected connections among the stories. Promised Lands features 23 stories by Elisa Albert, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Janice Eidus, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Lauren Grodstein, Aaron Hamburger, Dara Horn, Rachel Kadish, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Joan Leegant, Yael Goldstein Love, Rivka Lovett, Tova Mirvis, Lev Raphael, Nessa Rapoport, Jonathan Rosen, Thane Rosenbaum, Joey Rubin, Edward Schwarzschild, Steve Stern, Lara Vapnyar, Adam Wilson, and Jonathan Wilson.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781584659204
Publisher:	Brandeis University Press
Publication date:	11/09/2010
Series:	Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Derek Rubin lectures in the American Studies Program at Utrecht University. Jaap Verheul is associate professor of history and director of the American Studies Program at Utrecht University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction – Derek Rubin
Shtetl World – Dara Horn
Potatoes – Tova Mirvis
Avigdor of the Apes – Steve Stern
Toward Lithuania – Joey Rubin
The Florida Sunshine Tree – Melvin Jules Bukiet
Remittances – Joan Leegant
Leo’s Squid – Rivka Lovett
Sovereignty – Nessa Rapoport
The Liars – Jonathan Wilson
Come on Zion Put Your Hands Together – Rachel Kadish
The Lunatic – Binnie Kirshenbaum
Homewrecker – Lauren Grodstein
One Good Reason Why Not – Elisa Albert
Midhusband – Edward Schwarzschild
The Porchies – Adam Wilson
The End of Anti-Semitism – Aaron Hamburger
Things That Are Not Yours – Lara Vapnyar
A Bisel This, a Bisel That – Janice Eidus
The Yehudah Triangle – Thane Rosenbaum
Money – Lev Raphael
Lonely, Lonely, Lonely Is the Lord of Hosts – Yael Goldstein Love
The Afterlife of Skeptics – Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
The True World – Jonathan Rosen
Acknowledgments
About the Editor & Contributors

What People are Saying About This

Ilan Stavans

"Irving Howe was wrong: The Jewish-American writer didn't disappear after the post-immigrant generation but has become restless, multifaceted, and probing. Perhaps literature itself is now under threat but even that isn't a deterrent: To tell a story, and to tell it well, is proof of durability."
— Ilan Stavans, author of On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language

Hasia R. Diner

“That more than a score of writers—seasoned veterans and relative newcomers to the literary scene—have produced a volume of short stories struggling and playing with the themes of Jewishness in America at the beginning of the twenty-first century speaks loudly about the salience and resilience of ‘being Jewish.’ In a complicated descant, these writers demonstrate the enduring mystery and power of the Jewish tradition in a post-modern world.”

Editorial Reviews

Rubin's anthology of previously unreleased work by rising and prominent Jewish American authors shows the multitudinous and often unexpected ways in which Jewish ideology shapes people's lives. In Binnie Kirshenbaum's "Lunatic," a woman watching the news report of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination recognizes a former crush in the crowd of radicals and recalls her failed attempt to seduce the odd, unfriendly boy. Edward Schwarzschild's "Midhusband" features a man infatuated with the midwife who assisted eight months earlier in the birth of his child. As the tale progresses, and the midwife returns his feelings, the narrator bases a decision to deceive his wife on the well-being of his infant son. Another child figures prominently in Lauren Grodstein's "Homewrecker," in which the narrator's dogged repetition of the formal term "my future husband" illuminates her own isolation as she finds herself caught between him, his striking ex, and their damaged son. Standouts from Elisa Albert, Aaron Hamburger, Lara Vapnyar, Dara Horn, and others round out this stunning compilation of talented storytellers who have all been shaped somehow by history and faith, or lack there of. (Nov. 9)

Publishers Weekly

These stories, like all good fiction, bristle with pain and complication, but they also expand our empathy and even provide some consolation. One need not be Jewish to see in many of these magnificently crafted tales a kind of Jewish messianic expectation: a recognition that the promised land is the future; a better, more meaningful world to come, and something to strive for as well as long for.—Forward


“The stories [in Promised Lands] span an array of settings in time and place, and would fall at various points on any Promised-Land-in-concrete-or-abstract-terms continuum . . .. Any anthology featuring this contributor roster (the first three bylines in the table of contents belong to Dara Horn, Tova Mirvis, and Steve Stern) will contain some excellent work and will be well worth reading. Go buy it.”—Jewish Journal of Greater LA


“Rubin’s anthology of previously unreleased work by rising and prominent Jewish American authors shows the multitudinous and often unexpected ways in which Jewish ideology shapes people’s lives. In Binnie Kirshenbaum’s ‘Lunatic,’ a woman watching the news report of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination recognizes a former crush in the crowd of radicals and recalls her failed attempt to seduce the odd, unfriendly boy. Edward Schwarzschild’s ‘Midhusband’ features a man infatuated with the midwife who assisted eight months earlier in the birth of his child. As the tale progresses, and the midwife returns his feelings, the narrator bases a decision to deceive his wife on the well-being of his infant son. Another child figures prominently in Lauren Grodstein’s ‘Homewrecker,’ in which the narrator’s dogged repetition of the formal term ‘my future husband’ illuminates her own isolation as she finds herself caught between him, his striking ex, and their damaged son. Standouts from Elisa Albert, Aaron Hamburger, Lara Vapnyar, Dara Horn, and others round out this stunning compilation of talented storytellers who have all been shaped somehow by history and faith, or lack there of.” *Starred Review—Publishers Weekly


“Promised Lands should find a wide audience. For those readers who follow the contemporary Jewish American literary scene, Derek Rubin provides a rich gathering of stories that move, engage, and provoke.”—Jewish Book World


“Rubin offers a thoughtful and comprehensive discussion in his Introduction of the pervasiveness and elasticity of the Promised Land theme in much of our historic and current Jewish American fiction . . . . Promised Lands represents a significant contribution to the field of Jewish American fiction. Professors, in particular, will find it a most useful anthology for their courses on the subject.”—Shofar


“Each story deftly explores the Jewish immigrant experience. . . . The stories are interesting, thought provoking, bizarre and strike an emotional response in the reader.”—American Jewish Libraries


“The stories . . . are without exception well-written and well-conceived. This collection provides readers several hours of enjoyment - and some of that proverbial food for thought, which does for our minds what a hot bowl of matzah ball soup or a fresh orange does for our bodies.”—Washington Jewish Week

From the Publisher