There Is No Other

From the streets of modern Israel to the barrooms of Brooklyn to a suburban New England synagogue, the characters in these 10 stories search for love and acceptance in a world scarred by loss and loneliness. In “The Madonna of Temple Beth Elohim,” an Iraq war veteran sees a vision of the Virgin Mary on the eve of the Jewish high holidays. In “My Darling Sweetheart Baby,” a working-class drunk waits on his stoop for his disability check and the courage to proclaim his love to a local prostitute. And in the title story “There Is No Other,” a rage-filled Jewish boy, tormented by his African lineage, arrives at a school Purim party dressed as the prophet Mohammed. Magical, erotic, spiritually penetrating and terrifyingly realistic, these provocative tales continue the storytelling tradition of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Nathan Englander.

From the streets of modern Israel to the barrooms of Brooklyn to a suburban New England synagogue, the characters in these 10 stories search for love and acceptance in a world scarred by loss and loneliness. In “The Madonna of Temple Beth Elohim,” an Iraq war veteran sees a vision of the Virgin Mary on the eve of the Jewish high holidays. In “My Darling Sweetheart Baby,” a working-class drunk waits on his stoop for his disability check and the courage to proclaim his love to a local prostitute. And in the title story “There Is No Other,” a rage-filled Jewish boy, tormented by his African lineage, arrives at a school Purim party dressed as the prophet Mohammed. Magical, erotic, spiritually penetrating and terrifyingly realistic, these provocative tales continue the storytelling tradition of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Nathan Englander.

Publishers Weekly

A second collection of powerful stories by Papernick (The Ascent of Eli Israel) pursues the conflicted inner turmoil of Jews caught in a modern maelstrom. The chilling title story, set during Purim in a New York City Jewish school, pits a well-meaning, beleaguered young teacher against one of his disaffected charges, the angry half-Haitian Junius Barker, who comes to class dressed as a suicide-bombing prophet Mohammed and challenges the teacher to explain why the Jews are the chosen people. In "A Kiss for Mrs. Fisch," a 40-year-old businessman on his first trip to Israel and his first time away from his mother, decides to get a wife, but finds himself swimming uncomfortably between American materialism and ritualistic Judaism. In "The Madonna of Temple Beth Elohim," a shell-shocked Iraqi war victim offered work at a Boston-area synagogue believes he sees the imprint of the Madonna in a pulpit, setting off a firestorm between Christian pilgrims and bewildered Jews. And in "The Last Five-Year Plan," the millionaire developer protagonist hits on a brilliant idea to establish accord between Israelis and Palestinians: he'll introduce them to baseball. Papernick's new collection is tight and fearless. (Sept.)

Jonathan Papernick is a writer-in-residence at Emerson College and the author of The Ascent of Eli Israel and Who By Fire, Who By Blood. He lives in Boston.