The Book of Mischief: New and Selected Stories($20.77Value)

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"In the 25 years since [Stern] published his first book, younger Jewish writers have run with a similar shtick . . . But Stern was there first." ―The Toronto Globe and Mail T he Book of Mischief triumphantly showcases twenty-five years of outstanding work by one of our true masters of the short story. Steve Stern's stories take us from the unlikely old Jewish quarter of the Pinch in Memphis to a turn-of-thecentury immigrant community in New York; from the market towns of Eastern Europe to a down-at-the-heels Catskills resort. Along the way we meet a motley assortment of characters: Mendy Dreyfus, whose bungee jump goes uncannily awry; Elijah the prophet turned voyeur; and the misfit Zelik Rifkin, who discovers the tree of dreams. Perhaps it's no surprise that Kafka's cockroach also makes an appearance in these pages, animated as they are by instances of bewildering transformation. The earthbound take flight, the meek turn incendiary, the powerless find unwonted fame. Weaving his particular brand of mischief from the wondrous and the macabre, Stern transforms us all through the power of his brilliant imagination. Stern manages to be both ebullient and caustic, even within perfectly stitched sentences, throughout his cunning and transporting tales of Jewish life. This vital collection of new and previously published works spans a quarter of a century of Stern’s shape-shifting and loving stories of families and enclaves, most notably the Jewish neighborhood in WWI–era Memphis called the Pinch. Here the pragmatic old hands focused on assimilation shun those among them who pursue mystical revelations and run the Neighborhood House, where the greenhorns were taught how to box-step and brush their teeth. Stern’s fablelikeaccountsof mismatched marriages, misfit children, gossip, fear, and folly are stoked by sharp-tongued disputations and philosophical humor and stand as the American descendants of Isaac Babel’s Odessa Tales. Similarly vivid stories take place in New York City during the high tide of Jewish immigration and in Europe, including one about a boy in a death camp. Stern breathes life into every robustly detailed and emotionally nuanced story, lifting the veil between the earthly and the divine to create a radiant book of mischief and magic. --Donna Seaman “Stern's stories are suffused with nostalgia for this lost world. . . . Nothing goes unobserved.” ― The New York Times Book Review “[Stern is] a dazzling stylist. . . . The soulful stories in The Book of Mischief deserve to be found.” ― Dallas Morning News “Filled with pathos and humor. . . . At its most poignant, Stern's writing . . . peels away at the membranes that divide the present from the past.” ― The New Republic “A magisterial collection. . . . Stern's universe is a funny one, but he's honest enough to notice that sometimes we're the punch line.” ― Cleveland Plain Dealer “Stern's prose fuses the magical and the mundane, with an offhandedness that makes the normal seem odd, and the truly odd seem matter of fact. . . . mesmerizing.” ― Bookslut Steve Stern , winner of the National Jewish Book Award, is the author of several previous novels and story collections, including The Frozen Rabbi and The Wedding Jester . He teaches at Skidmore College in upstate New York. The Book of Mischief New and Selected Stories By Steve Stern Graywolf Press Copyright © 2012 Steve Stern All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-55597-621-7 Contents I. North Main Street, Memphis, The Tale of a Kite, Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven, Zelik Rifkin and the Tree of Dreams, The Lord and Morton Gruber, Shimmele Fly-by-Night, Moishe the Just, Aaron Makes a Match, Legend of the Lost, II. The Lower East Side, New York, The Sin of Elijah, Romance, Avigdor of the Apes, Heaven Is Full of Windows, III. Europe, Yiddish Twilight, The Ballad of Mushie Momzer, The Man Who Would Be Kafka, On Jacob's Ladder, IV. The Catskills, The Wedding Jester, Glossary, Acknowledgments, CHAPTER 1 The Tale of a Kite It's safe to say that we Jews of North Main Street are a progressive people. I don't mean to suggest we have any patience with freethinkers, like that crowd down at Thompson's Café; tolerant within limits, we're quick to let subversive elements know where they stand. Observant (within reason), we keep the Sabbath after our fashion, though the Saturday competition won't allow us to close our stores. We keep the holidays faithfully, and are regular in attending our modest little synagogue on Market Square. But we're foremost an enterprising bunch, proud of our contribution to the local economy. Even our secondhand shops contain up-to-date inventories, such as stylish automobile capes for the ladies, astrakhan overcoats for gentlemen — and our jewelers, tailors, and watchmakers are famous all over town. Boss Crump and his heelers, who gave us a dispensation to stay open on Sundays, have declared more than once in our presence, "Our s