Whoa, Nelly. This is really not a book for people not willing to be challenged to think. Not that the book is an indecipherable read, like, say, Ulysses. No, the short stories in this collection are mostly accessible (there's one written in a more experimental form that was a bit hard to follow), plainly told stories, but the conflicts and issues of ethics they raise will make you ponder.
I haven't read Englander before, so I'm not sure how this compares to his other books. This is very much a collection of pieces about various aspects of Judaism. It can be a microcosm, such as in the title story where two married couples, one much more devout and observant than the other, compare and contrast their lives with intense results. Or it might be a story that's more like a fable, with two women on a lonely mountainside overlooking Palestine, and how over the decades the women and their community evolves and changes and copes with the war that irrevocably shaped their world. It could be a macabre tale, the kind where you start out laughing uneasily and then wonder if laughing was appropriate, that takes place at Camp Sundown, a summer camp for elderly Jews. It's even the surprisingly gentle story of Author, a formerly revered novelist who has poured 12 years into his latest book, only to find the world of literature has passed him by and forgotten him.
It's a slim volume, not a story out of place. Highly recommended. But be prepared to be uncomfortable.
