Book Review: The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff and other Stories

Joseph Epstein. The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010

Fourteen short stories set in Chicago or Evanston that contain at least one Jewish person. Jewish culture is regularly referenced. The subjects addressed in these stories include friendship, marriage, money, immaturity, wealth disparity, mental illness and homelessness, monetary and career success, reputation, challenges of families in midlife, relationships between siblings but especially between brothers. 


I enjoyed each story and found myself thinking about the characters and issues presented in the story for the next few days.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2022-12-19 Vespers - Commemoration of Adam and Eve

 2022-12-19 Vespers - Commemoration of Adam and Eve - Isaiah 40:1-17 & Revelation 7:1-17 As we commemorate the first man and woman today, we recognize that Adam and Eve were endowed with great gifts from God. Adam is created in the image of God. And from Adam came Eve. Adam is given dominion over all the earth. A tremendous responsibility of stewardship is entrusted to him.  When they succumbed to the temptation to be like God, and fell into sin, their sin impacts us all to this day.  When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s command, they inaugurated a cycle of life and death that we have no choice but to participate in.   Creation is constantly changing. There is nothing steady.  The seasons come and go.  The sleep and inactivity of winter leads into the new birth of spring which is followed by a summer of growth which is then followed by a time of harvest and a slow dying as all of creation returns to its winter death waiting for the new life to ...
Read more

John Donne on Christmas

Image
As we are now happily within the Twelve Days of Christmas, I am pleased to share this snippet by John Donne that I have borrowed from Alan Jacobs blog:  https://buttondown.email/ayjay/archive/christmas-epiphany/ John Donne, from a sermon preached at St. Paul’s Cathedral on  Christmas Day 1626 : The life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die Martyrs, but Christ was born a Martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem, where he was born; For, to his tenderness then, the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after; and the Manger as uneasy at first, as his Cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday, are but the evening and morning of one and the same day. And as even his birth, is his death, so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us, is his birth; for,  Epiphany  is manifestation; And therefore, though the Church doe now call Twelfth-day Epiphany, because...
Read more

2022-12-21 Evening Prayer - Commemoration of St. Thomas, Apostle

 2022-12-21 Commemoration of St. Thomas, Apostle- Isaiah 42:1-25, Rev 9:1-12 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.  God speaking through Isaiah issues a wonderful promise: “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” That promise is of a Savior who is coming.  Isaiah 42 contains the first of four suffering servant songs found in Isaiah. The others may be found in chapters 49, 50, and 52-53.  These texts are linked to Jesus. In fact, Isaiah 42:1-4 is quoted in Matthew 12. In between the miracles of healing a man with a withered hand and casting out a demon, Matthew lets us know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the one Isaiah spoke of.  Jesus is the chosen servant. He does the Father’s work in the power of the Holy Spirit.  He is opposed, oppressed, ridiculed, rejected, scorned and even smited on the cross. But, despite the herculean efforts of the enemies...
Read more