What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories

by Nathan Englander

These eight new stories from the celebrated novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander display a gifted young author grappling with the great questions of modern life, with a command of language and the imagination that place Englander at the very forefront of contemporary American fiction.
 
The title story, inspired by Raymond Carver’s masterpiece, is a provocative portrait of two marriages in which the Holocaust is played out as a devastating parlor game. In the outlandishly dark “Camp Sundown” vigilante justice is undertaken by a group of geriatric campers in a bucolic summer enclave. “Free Fruit for Young Widows” is a small, sharp study in evil, lovingly told by a father to a son. “Sister Hills” chronicles the history of Israel’s settlements from the eve of the Yom Kippur War through the present, a political fable constructed around the tale of two mothers who strike a terrible bargain to save a child. Marking a return to two of Englander’s classic themes, “Peep Show” and “How We Avenged the Blums” wrestle with sexual longing and ingenuity in the face of adversity and peril. And “Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother’s Side” is suffused with an intimacy and tenderness that break new ground for a writer who seems constantly to be expanding the parameters of what he can achieve in the short form.
 
Beautiful and courageous, funny and achingly sad, Englander’s work is a revelation.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Jewish, Judaism, Holocaust, Literary Fiction, Book Club

7 pages, Audio CD

First published February 7, 2012

About the author

Nathan Englander is a Jewish-American author born in Long Island, NY in 1970. He wrote the short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1999. The volume won widespread critical acclaim, earning Englander the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kauffman Prize, and established him as an important writer of fiction.

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Reviews

[Glenn Sumi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d read the occasional Nathan Englander story before in magazines and anthologies, but nothing prepared me for the enormous range, depth and maturity of the eight stories in this superb collection.

Englander takes on big issues – anti-Semitism, the Israeli settlements, avenging the Holocaust – but always from an unexpected angle and with a fresh, authentic voice. These tales offer up urgent, morally complex questions about how to live in the world and the ways stories affect us.

There’s a Kafkaesque parable; a moving historical saga; a postmodern experiment about writing and autobiography; an erotic romp that takes a surreal turn. The title story, inspired by Raymond Carver’s classic "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," is a very funny but also serious look at trust, Jewish identity and, yes, love.

These stories will linger in my imagination. I look forward to revisiting them and checking out his other two books.

[Anmiryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first and last stories in this collection are brilliant. They are intellectually satisfying, funny, and emotionally wrenching. In them Englander manages to address issues and themes that have run through my life, and I suspect many Jewish and half-Jewish (that would be me) Americans born after WWII and the founding of Israel. What role does Judaism as a religion play in our lives? If we do not practice, are we still Jewish? How do we know what we would have done if caught in the horror that was the Holocaust? Who can we trust and how do we judge? It is a measure of Englander's talent that these tales could also be read by someone who does not share the same background and their power would not be diminished. If every story in this collection were as good as these two, this would be a five star book.

Unfortunately, although the pieces in between have their moments, they fail to reach the same level in terms of craft or emotional punch. Englander has still to find a strong balance between incorporating talmudic, magical and folkloric elements into his work in ways that do not feel forced. Too often the experimentation doesn't deepen the reader's experience of the emotional state of the characters, but distracts from it. Did we really need the naked rabbis in "Peep Show" to feel Ari/Alan's guilt over abandoning his usual homeward commute to dash into a Times Square dive? Nor is the choice to promote the central character of "The Reader" to the iconic "The Author" give universality and heft to it's look at aging, and the indiscriminate ability of time to destroy us without sympathy. I would have preferred a more particularized central character who would have elicited my sympathy for his plight rather than being pushed to see this small, uneventful tale as a discourse on the human condition.

Still, even when he doesn't completely succeed, Englander writes with grace, sharp observation and emotional heft. I have looked forward to this new collection since I picked up his first, "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges," on a whim when it was first published. I look forward to his next as well.

[Arnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sorry , I posted my review of The Paris wife for this will rewrite soon.
Rewrite:
I thought the first story (the title story) was extremely powerful, but would have been better without the short coda about the current circumstances of two characters). The second story was excellent. Except for the last story (which I didn't find credible) the rest of the stories were good but nothing special. A good review would contain too many spoilers.

[Jan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

What stops Nathan Englander from being a Philip Roth?

A marriage falls under an uncomfortable spotlight during a parlor game....
A dystopian fairy tale in which an intolerable requirement of heroism and loss leads to a cruel entitlement;
How might the perennially weak-kneed among us -- the ninety-pound weaklings, as they used to be called -- man up?
A sexy tale reminiscent of Michel Houellebecq....
A family that can't handle the truth, so they disallow feelings and rewrite history: not an unfamiliar story.
In the face of a possible Demjanjuc, what if vigilantism prevails?
A once-celebrity author who has been reduced to one ghostly follower, or is he being stalked?
And last, but the best, whether sinners who are also heroes should be called out or celebrated...

None of these are bad stories; they are artful and creative.

The last story, as I said, is the best, but the one about fear may be most pertinent in regard to the question of why Englander cannot rise to the level of a Roth.

At a young age, probably while in secondary school, I was taught (or, anyway, learned) that in primitive tribes, a person who was shunned -- put outside the tribe -- might actually die. That could only happen to benighted and superstitious savages, we thought. But, no: the internalized fear of shunning is, as ever, an effective means of social control. And that's my hypothesis.

3 1/2 stars

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of like a pop album, I found the quality of this collection started really high with the first two stories which I found captivating but then petered out towards the end. The first story was truly well-written with a surprising ending and the second, the longest in the collection, was poetic and insightful. But, I was less enthusiastic about the rest of the collection.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

After not finishing his novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, I was happy to have my confidence in Englander (and in my own sense of humor) restored after reading the title story. There's an even more hilarious -- and darker -- story later in the collection that reaffirmed this feeling.

The stories range from comic and devastating to devastatingly dark, with different styles, including a parable of sorts and one in the form of creative nonfiction that emphasizes a couple of things are true in both realms of fiction and fact, thus letting us know the other things about Nathan and his family probably aren't -- though, then again, the story's fiction, so maybe none of it is true ... in fact. These two may be my favorites. Though I do not get along with fables or parables, "Sister Hills" is an exception. Perhaps because it taught me some history, but more likely because it provides no clear-cut answer to a very troubling question.

Two stories that seem to go back to territory explored in For the Relief of Unbearable Urges didn't work as well for me, but there's something to be said for any story that has you thinking about it days later. Another story evinced an 'eh' from me (the theme has been done better elsewhere), but I was willing to forgive it. I'm not sure at all about the troubling last story. Once again, I'm still thinking about it, but not in the good way as with some of the earlier stories. It's long enough, but it seems more like a sketch, and I don't think it shows us what it tells us.

In short, I recommend half of these stories.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last year when I was in Brattle Books in Boston I heard a patrician lady say to her granddaughter, I think you'd love Nathan Englander, he's funny and his stories are deep but quick. Such was my experience today. I think part of the reason was the title -- Jesus, I love it -- but I had looked forward to reading this in public. Alas, I went for bicycle ride and returned home beat. I picked this collection up and read straight through.


The Shoah features in at least half of the stories. Some made me chuckle; the last one left me with tears: much like the two GIs who find a survivor in Free Fruit For Young Widows. I thought of other authors which slip into this vein for me personally: Rick Moody, Ken Kalfus, David Bowman. It strikes me that these stories, these collections are but products, designed for the consumer to be emote appropriately. If only we had an Onion Cellar Club like young Oskar.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty, iconoclastic, but never trivial, Englander’s short stories form an enduring reflection on Jewish identity in light of history.

The title story sets the tragicomic tone as Englander’s contemporary characters obsess over the Holocaust, speculating about whether Gentile friends would hide them, Anne Frank-like, in an attic if the worst happened again. The recurring Jewish problem of self-definition, Englander insists, is that “you can’t build Judaism only on the foundation of one terrible crime.” And yet a central message throughout the stories is that everything must be understood in a historical framework, from a compassionate perspective. For instance, in “Free Fruit for Young Widows,” an Israeli father tells his son he can justify a fellow soldier’s murderous rampage “because to a story, there is context. There is always context in life.”

Context is indeed key to understanding another Israel-set story, “Sister Hills,” which is rich with biblical resonance despite its matter-of-fact prose. The mother of a dying girl ‘sells’ her to a neighbor to trick Death, but when the girl lives and the neighbor comes to claim her in exchange for her dead sons, the rabbis are called in to adjudicate. It is as intriguing and ancient a fable as King Solomon might have presided over, though it begins in 1973; the father is even described like a Hebrew patriarch: “with his beard blowing, and his long white robe...he looked—poised among those ancient hills—like a man outside of time.”

Other stand-outs are “Peep Show,” a riotous piece of absurdist fantasy redolent of Philip Roth at his most adolescent, in which a hapless schmuck stops into a girlie bar only to find that the naked bodies paraded in front of him belong to his mother, his pregnant wife, and various rabbis he has known; and “Camp Sundown,” a deceptively weighty tale of elderly Jews harassing a fellow summer camper – with the kind of chilling ending you might find in Flannery O’Connor.

(Recommended reading: as a pair with Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander.)

[Will Ansbacher · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s an intriguing title – it’s what made me pick up the book - but these are rather constrained short stories. The blurbs mention biting wit and humour but it’s quite understated when present at all.
There is something about the moral dilemmas that Englander’s characters find themselves in, and the title story was about the best of the lot – two couples play a game of whether they would have done what Anne Frank’s protectors did.

However, most of the stories have that stilted quality of parables or morality plays, where the characters represent archetypes rather than being themselves. “Sister Hills”, for example, explores a settler community in Israel with a rather laboured set of religious analogies that left me unmoved. And in “Reader”, an aging author on the publicity circuit is actually called Author. I get the point, but the device also has the effect of distancing me from the characters.

I was reminded of Margaret Atwood’s Moral Disorder stories which I thought were much more appealing.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

So what do Jews talk about when they talk about Anne Frank – or, perhaps more to the point, when they talk about love?

In the eponymous story, inspired by Ray Carver’s masterpiece, speaking about Anne Frank is laced with love, trust and fear. Ray Carver’s characters revealed how what we don’t say is more important than what we do, and in this pitch-perfect take-off, the same dynamics apply. Only this time, two old friends from yeshiva school unite years later and find themselves grappling with the question after a recreational drug-induced evening. They have taken different paths: one has married a secular Jew and lives in Florida with their teenaged son; the other has become ultra-Orthodox and has moved to Israel, where she has borne ten daughters.

Eventually, the couples end up playing the “Anne Frank game”, a devastating parlor game where each must ask a piercing question: “Who would hide her if another Holocaust occurred? Would you?” The story is exquisitely rendered without a false not, and rips back the curtain on the anxieties that hide behind the vast majority of contemporary Jews today

It is, in this reader’s opinion, the strongest of the stories. Others that are noteworthy are Camp Sundown, a black comedy of a group of eight geriatric and possibly – but not definitely – demented survivors who take vengeance into their own hands when they suspect that one of their own was at the very least a witness to war atrocities and isn’t as he appears. Another, Sister Hills, chronicles the advancing of Israeli settlements with a King Solomon type of bargain that two young mothers make to save one of their children. And in the last story, Free Fruit for Young widows, the theme is clearly about the choices we make in a world that isn’t always rational.

Others are slightly less engrossing: Peep Show and How We Avenged the Blums, which tackle – at their core – the theme of how to be a courageous Jew, with two very different outcomes. Another, Everything I Know About My Family On My Mother’s Side may or may not be autobiographical, but is suffused with emotion and tenderness.

Each of the stories focuses on a pivotal question of what it means to be Jewish, the role that religion (secular or otherwise) plays in the character’s life, and how to trust oneself and others in the face of contemporary temptations and atavistic fears. Some of these stories are six-star in their cleverness and craftsmanship; others just slightly miss. All in all, Englander writes convincingly of not just the Jewish condition but also the human condition.

[Marcello S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Io i racconti li reggo e non li reggo.
Quello del racconto è un meccanismo così complicato che io probabilmente nemmeno lo capisco.
Non so tutto quello che ci sta dietro, il come far tornare le cose senza farle tornare veramente.
Qualcosa di simile vale per le poesie credo. Non mi è quasi mai capitato di leggerne una che avrei scritto su un muro di casa.

La faccio breve: Nathan Englander mi è piaciuto a metà.

Dopo il primo racconto gli avrei dato 10 stelle. Ero gasatissimo.
Perché il primo racconto, ve lo dire dire, è eccezionale. Quasi perfetto, già dal titolo (lo stesso della raccolta).
Fa il verso quanto basta a quello - quasi omonimo - di Carver, con due coppie che si confrontano e quel finale un po’ in bilico.
E’ divertente, cattivo, morale. Se fossi uno scrittore di racconti glielo invidierei tantissimo.

E poi niente, mi sono sgasato. Come l’aranciata che sta in frigo da una settimana e intanto ci hanno bevuto un po’ tutti.

In totale ci sono 8 racconti. Accomunati dall’avere per protagonisti degli ebrei. Più o meno ortodossi.
E dove l’olocausto è raccontato in un modo un po’ diverso (originale?) rispetto al solito.

Altri tre, oltre al primo, valgono davvero la pena: "Le colline sorelle", "Tutto quello che so della mia famiglia dalla parte di mia madre” (che metterei al secondo posto) e "Frutta gratis per giovani vedove”.

In totale fanno 4 racconti col segno +.
Gli altri 4, si capisce, stanno dall’altra parte della barricata. Con loro non ho ingranato.

Però ve l’ho detto, i racconti non li so gestire.
E alla fine credo che Nathan Englander sia comunque un figo. [71/100]

[Genia Lukin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Warning: In order to enjoy this book, you have to be Jewish. But not too Jewish. And definitely not an Israeli.

Preferably, you will be a well-educated, liberal, possibly somewhat traditional reader, who is rooted in his knowledge of, if not Judaism, then Jewish culture, so that you can understand all those parallels and parables the author throws at you. But not too rooted, because then you would know just how implausible some of the situations portrayed by Englander and acted out by his characters really are.

I'm not talking about haredi Jews taking drugs and drinking - there's nothing implausible about that. I am not talking about settlers being bitter, nasty, or petty - there's nothing implausible about that, either. I am talking about a family walking i to their hosts' house - people they'd never met before - and beginning to spout interminable Israeli cliches. Do I say the sort of thing that the two visitors from "What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank" spend the first four pages of the story saying in order to further ingratiate themselves upon the host - and the reader? Actually, yes, yes I do. Do I make an ass of myself by doing so the first time I meet someone in their own house? What sort of idiot do you take me for.

Englander's Hidden Design is so obvious, it's practically painful; look, here are these two moral paragons of religion, who are completely disgusting and inhuman until they get drunk and stoned and shed their superior morality to show that they, too, are just as human as the secular man who, despite everything, managed a better, more fulfilled, more genuine life. It's a well known cliche, but old, so old, old enough that its white beard is dragging on the ground, and it's easily recognizable to every reader.

Or how about Sister Hills, where a court scene is staged and lasts for ten pages in order to show that adherence to religious law and principle must perpetrate an immoral and perverted outcome, and that the myths settlers and religious Jews uphold if genuinely looked upon and interpreted must reveal full on their ugly and wrong nature, which in reality would have been solved with exactly three sentences, and dismissed, with no impact to religious life whatsoever? How about a 27-year-old who puts up no active resistance against being bound to a woman she cares nothing for against her will for the rest of her life?

Englander's characters go out to prove a point, with clubs in their hands which they smack over the readers' heads, and appear to be devoid of agency, of personal drive, or of independent motivations. They are created to prove a point, and that point gets proved.

In many ways, the look Englander gives at everything is the look of the outsider. I do not know when and on what terms he departed from Orthodoxy, but the efforts to distance himself, place his adult, thoughtful life on the other side of the fence, are apparent, and they hurt. It will always be a question as to whether it is possible for an outsider to write a true portrayal of a society, and whether by being an outsider that portrait may even be improved, but, I feel, in the cases where said portrait is truly improved, the outsider has a sense of his own outsidedness. He knows he is an outsider, and is humble before that disconnect, perhaps even struggling against it - in every portrayal of a society by an outsider there is an attempt to come closer and to become part, while knowing that it is, in fact, impossible.

Englander is exactly the opposite. he is an outsider who thinks he's still in, a person who attempts to cosset an 'inside look' at a world while trying to detach himself, morally, emotionally, and cognitively, from it. He cannot hope to being to be the conscience of the Jewish world, because he is no longer part of its moral dilemmas.

One thing more and I am done. I know that, when reading this review, people are likely to say that, being Orthodox, being a settler, I am unable to face up to Englander's 'sharp, insightful criticism'. That my objections stem from an attempt to live in an idyll, or close-mindedness, or bias. So let me tell you this: Englander's criticism scares me not at all, most especially since it's neither all that sharp, nor necessarily insightful. We - the Orthodoxy, the Jews - have faced worse before. Englander is neither the Karaite movement, nor the thinkers of the Enlightenment, nor Spinosa. We've looked at these criticisms, and have taken them into ourselves, and become better, stronger, more versatile for it. I am thankful for these critics, the apostates of the past.

Englander is simply not one of them. His critique is based upon shallow cliches, little vignettes, cornered people with no thought of their own. His stories are not a mirror, or at least, it is a mirror reflecting darkly, not brightly. His criticism is his own, of course, and I would never rob a man of it, but distorted criticism makes for poor writing, and Englander's sin, as a writer, is one I find hard to forgive.

[Laura Leaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Englander's talent is undeniable. Every short story in this collection is fraught with conflict, beautifully detailed, and psychologically insightful. Everyone is Jewish - except for the occasional gentile or anti-semite. And Jewishness is held down over the characters' faces like paper bags that keep them from breathing any other air. Who is the most Jewish is the contest of the day. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it leads to some very funny moments (a little Roth like, to me) and some serious guilt. Nevertheless, it became a bit stifling.

My favorite story is the one for which the collection is named. Definitely 4 or 5 stars here, with two couples sitting around a table in Florida smoking pot while their darkest anxieties intensify. The narrator reminds me of the guy in Carver's "Cathedral" - a less-than-religious host who's already pissed that he's got to sit around with his wife's hassidic friends from Israel while they "lecture us on the Israeli occupation." Even though I saw the end coming, it was still gut-wrenching. I also like the second story "Sister Hills" quite a lot. This story has the flavor of ancient folklore, which still has the power to punch you in the heart. Ultimately, each story is about the human condition, which is why Singer's "Gimpel the Fool" resonates so deeply even 75 years after it was written.

There's a great quote in "How We Avenged the Blums," spoken by an older boy with a powerful physique, who is being recruited to beat up the neighborhood bully and anti-semite: "'It's a delicate thing being Jewish,' Ace said. 'It's a condition that aggravates the more mind you pay it. Let it go, I tell you. If you insist on fighting, then at least fight him yourselves.'" I swear - this could be the mantra of every story in this book.

The rest of the collection feels over-wrought to me, although I might be in the minority here. They are still funny ("Peep Show" and "Camp Sundown" particularly), but I wasn't moved by them.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of stories. The first story, for which the collection is named, owes more than just the play on the title to Raymond Carver. Like Carver, Englander is able to capture the hints of disappointment or betrayal in a few words between intimates. Also like Carver, so much happens between the commas and periods of a conversation. Don't get me wrong, Englander definitely has his own voice and way of telling a story. Some stories even dip into dreamlike fantasy, like Peep Show, which takes a character who has become a secular Jew and explores his identity through a strange peep show experience.

While nearly all the stories touch on some aspect of Jewish identity and experience, one in particular, The Reader, does not; it's about the relationship a writer has to his art and to his audience along with a commentary about what the modern business of making and consuming literature has become today.

From kids dealing with a neighborhood bully to a Jewish settler on the West Bank to a group of geriatric vigilantes, these stories, though joined by cohesive themes, are markedly different from each other. You should read 'em.

[John Luiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a blurb on the back of this book from the great Richard Russo that really captures what makes this collection so special: “Nathan Englander is one of the rare writers, who like Faulkner, manages to make his seemingly obsessive, insular concerns all the more universal for their specificity.” Englander’s characters are all Jewish, struggling with antisemitism, memories of the Holocaust and the pull between religion and the secular world. As someone raised Catholic, I may not get all the Hebrew and Yiddish words that pepper some of these stories, but I found every one of the stories riveting. Englander is one of those amazing writers that you just sit back comfortably to read, knowing that with every turned page he’s going to delight and amaze you. The other startling things about this collection is the range – he takes you from the silly revenge fantasies of a pack of teenage boys to the gripping reality of a violent, soul-deadened man whose ability to empathize was killed off by the horrors he lived through in a concentration camp. I highly recommend this collection to anyone.

The eight stories in the collection are:

1. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank -- 30 pp – An Orthodox couple living in Israel visits another secular couple living in Florida so the two wives, who were childhood friends in Brooklyn, can reunite. The story, told from the secular husband’s perspective, starts off with a very funny take on the man’s annoyance at his Israeli’s counterpart’s constant attempts to prove he and his wife are living a more Jewish life than their American friends. But when the couples play the “Anne Frank game” to determine who they could depend on to save them if they needed to be hidden in a secret place, the Orthodox wife comes to a startling realization about her husband.

2. Sister Hills – 39 pp – A great story about two women from families who founded a small Jewish settlement near the Palestinian border that grew to a bustling city. One woman loses her husband and three sons to various wars and accidents, and when she is left without family, she expects her neighbor to honor a contract they made when the other woman’s daughter was an infant and feverish. Hoping she could trick the angel of death, the other woman “sold” her daughter to her neighbor, for a minimal amount and then continued to raise her, never thinking the other woman would ever really consider the daughter hers.

3. How We Avenged the Blums -- 21 pp – A very funny tale about a pack of boys plotting their revenge against a bully who likes to pick on Jewish kids. Part of their plan includes getting very unorthodox martial arts training from a Russian refusenik who works as a janitor at their school. This story was in the 2006 Best American Short Stories collection.

4. Peep Show -- 15 pp – Another funny, but this time surreal, story about a young, married lawyer who steps into a Times Square peep show, but gets very excited by one of the girls who works there. When he deposits more coins in the machine, to open his window and view her again, the stage has been taken over the rabbis, now naked, who taught him as a boy and want to know why he has abandoned his religion.

5. “Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother’s Side” - 21 pp – A story written in short numbered sections about a writer with a Bosnian girlfriend who worries that he doesn’t have as interesting a family life as she does – and therefore may not have enough material to create interesting fiction. When he starts to piece together his family history, he discovers there are more interesting stories than he realized – all the while mourning the loss of his girlfriend after she leaves him.

6. Camp Sundown – 25 pp – One of my favorite stories in the collection. Starts off as a very funny tale about the frustrations of a counselor at a Jewish camp for the elderly, but takes a movingly darker turn when some of the older folks plot revenge against a fellow camper they are convinced was a guard at a concentration camp they managed to survive.

7. The Reader -- 18 pp – A writer was once the toast of the town, but 12 years elapsed before he published his next book, and now he’s forgotten. He goes on a book tour and faces empty seats at bookstores for his readings – except for one loyal fan who shows up at every reading, in cities across the country, forcing the author to put on the standard show, even though there’s no one else in the audience. The slightly surreal piece becomes a great contemplation of the relationship between writers and their readers.

8. Free Fruit for Young Widows – 17 pp – Englander saves the hardest hitting story for last. The story begins with a description about a heartless Israeli soldier who kills four spies in the Israeli army and then savagely beats the man who questions why he did it, when he could have just as easily taken them as prisoners. Years later, the victim of that beating treats that man to fruit from his stand whenever he encounters his former adversary, who has become a professor. The fruit seller’s son, knowing the story, wonders how his father could be so kind to a man who was so brutal to him, but then he learns about the soul-deadening atrocities the man experienced in a concentration camp, and the further heartlessness he experienced after the war when he tried to reunite with the non-Jewish family who worked the farm his family owned before they were shipped off to the camps. A grabs-you-by-the-throat powerful story that selected for the 2011 Best American Short Stories collection.

[jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Englander's “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges” was the sort of lovely irreverent debut that makes one take note of an author and eagerly await his next work. His first novel, “Ministry of Special Cases,” smart and emotionally sharp, pointed to a writer well on the way to finding his own unique voice. With “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” Englander has more than come into his own, he has firmly established himself as Bernard Malamud's worthy heir.

From the the beginning, Englander has always written in fine sure prose. His sentences are elegant, deceptive in their simplicity. Of course, you can say that about a lot of modern writers. What makes Englander different is the surety of what one might call his moral sense, his ability to realize complex often ambiguous situations, while maintaining a deep regard for the essential goodness of his characters, even those a reader may come to dislike. This isn't a writer who feels the need to grope at profundity, bludgeoning the reader with this or that message – the death of much fine fiction. No, Englander's characters find complexity on their own terms, becoming members of the family, living on in his reader's minds.

A series of topics permeate this collection, several of which Englander has previously explored. The conflicting perspectives between young and old. Anti-Semitism. The way loss scars the soul and, perhaps, never truly heals. While all of eight of these stories are excellent, a few in particular continue to stand out in my mind. The title piece owes less to Carver and more to Joyce and Malamud. Two couples, one secular and the other ultra-orthodox, are brought together by the childhood friendship of the two women. Their discussion turns eventually to the place of the Holocaust in their respective identities and the amount of risk each person is willing to take to maintain their humanity. This story's ending is pure emotional poetry. “Sister Hills” follows the life of a Jewish community on the West Bank, through the perspectives of two women. Englander's story white washes none of the moral complexity inherent in this laden topic, while delivering a satisfying, fully realized tale of loss and desperation. Then there is “Free Fruit for Young Widows,” of which I can say nothing save it is among those special stories that will remain alive in my mind for many years, perhaps for as long as I am alive.

If there is a bookstore in heaven – and I pray that there is – Bernard Malamud is standing in the stacks, tearing through “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.” Can you hear him? He's weeping with joy.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd really give this book about a 3.5 to a 3.7 rating. (but rated UP).

Its a small book --(8 short stories)--Jewish or Israeli themes.

A couple of the stories are Holocaust themes -- (such as "Camp Sundown") ---yet, its a very funny short story. (hilarious).

"Sister Hills" -- drove me 'crazy' --like 'nails-on-a-chalk-board-crazy'. (maybe---it was because I was in Israel myself during the Yom Kippur War?)
Or....maybe it was the story itself.
Two woman founded a small Jewish settlement near the Palestinian Border. One woman lost her husband (fighting in the Yom Kippur War -- Plus, she lost her three sons (in years to come) ---
The 'other' woman had a sick baby. She wanted to sell her baby to the woman who lost her 'men'....(if not attached to her child then maybe GOD would let the child live)--
The story was too long--(fable?) --and no solid 'punch line' (IMO)

"Everything I know About My Family on My Mother's Side" (I found this story charming)

"Peep Show" Hilarious!!!!!!!

"The first Story" ---(forget the name already: but NOT the story)....was also Hilarious!!!! Two couples reunite after decades of separation. (Facebook/Skype).
An American couple and the Israeli couple compare American Jewish life vs. Orthodox Judaism in Israel. (the Israeli couple has 10 kids).
They start 'smoking pot' ---(this story gets very funny) --- then play the Ann Frank game (who will hide you --as a Jew--if we had a modern Holocaust today?)

"The Reader" The best line >>>>>> "Really, how much richer could a reading life be than finding, even for one night, one true reader"?

"Free Fruit For Young Widows" The most powerful story. (also the last). An Israeli soldier kills 4 spies ---then beats a man who questions why he did it.
Years later, the victim of the beating treats the man to fruit from his fruit stand. He son wonders why. (very powerful). It was the only 'non-funny' story in this book which I liked AS MUCH as the FUNNY stories.

I think Nathan Englander's strongest talent is in writing tragic-comedy (which is pretty cool --because not a 'ton' of writers do this well).
I'd like to see this author write a longer novel (100% tragic-comedy).

[Lauren Howells · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a long time to finish this book. The first few stories did not entice me, and for the last couple of days I’ve had to force myself to read in order to get it finished. However, the last three stories were wonderful, which is where my three stars come from.

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Nathan Englander's debut collection of short stories For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. There were moments in that book that I felt like Bernard Malamud (a writer I love so outlandishly that tears come to my eyes when I type his name) was walking among us again.

Englander's new collection shook in my hands as I opened it - my excitement was so great, my longing so intense. For the most part, he delivers. Here are the highlights:

Best story: The title story is a hilarious and poignant depiction of two couples playing a parlour game that becomes a serious comment on themselves and the holocaust. It's part satire, part spoof, part homage to Raymond Carver, but it's a powerful piece of writing that gets the collection off with a bang.

Best story runner up: All of the other stories. There isn't a story that isn't at least good in the batch. Englander explores many different modes of story telling and the collection is quite varied. Some are long on history, some take place in the Middle East, some here in America, some seem painfully autobiographical and some seem archtypal. For my money, the other two stories that I'd recommend are How We Avenged the Blums and Free Fruit for Young Widows.

Best section in a story: The third part of the Sister Hills is a magnificent tale of ancient superstitions meeting the modern world. I felt like Englander was channelling I.B. Singer in this tale of a girl who must abandon her family and take care of a neighbor because of an oath her mother took a quarter of a century earlier. Englander is giving us a history of the Israeli settlements in this, at times absurdist, tale of two founding families.

Best passage in the book: In Peep Show, the overwrought Allen imagines that he sees his mother before him. Englander writes, "Allen's mother is wearing stockings and garters. In the place where other such women keep tips, she has a wad of Kleenex."
"Do you need some tissue, Ari? Did you remember to bring?" She gets up to hand him some.

That passage is funny all on its own, but for me it has some personal meaning. The only time that I wish my wife was more like my mother is when I'm somewhere and need a tissue. My wife never has them and my Jewish mother always had them. I've brought this issue up time and time again with my wife, to no avail. I showed her the Englander story and she said, "Okay, okay I get it. But I still don't see why you can't carry your own tissue."

[Sharon Burgin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a compilation of 8 short stories about Jews. Each is about a different person, experiencing a different way of life and Nathan Englander tries to pose a philosophical conundrum in each one. What would you do in this situation?

It started off very promisingly with a story sharing the same title as the book. Based in Florida it told the story of two couples originally from the same part of the country and way of life, who had then gone totally separate ways, one couple to Florida, the other to Jerusalem. An enjoyable read and thought provoking.

The next tale of ‘Sister Hills’ told the story of two founding families of a village in Samaria between 1973 and 2011. It tells of how the village was created and how lives have changed since its inception. Again, another strong story.

The other stories range from children being bullied by an anti-Semite; a summer camp for elderly Jews (Elderhostel) as well as children; a man going into a peep show (I couldn’t understand that one) to an author doing a book-signing tour.

Some of the stories were interesting, others totally confusing so luckily they were all short. I haven’t read anything else by Nathan Englander, maybe readers familiar with him would appreciate the book more and understand what he is trying to say.

[Briann · Rating 3 out of 5]

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”

🩷 3.5 ⭐
🩷 The story and dialogue dragged on for quite a bit. However, the ending was unexpected and made up for the prolonged dialogue.

“Sister Hills”

🧡 4 ⭐
🧡 I wish the author had left the ending ambiguous. It would have been more meaningful for me, and something I would ponder for years to come.

“How We Avenged the Blums”

🩷 3.5 ⭐
🩷 The short story was just a continuance performance of masculinity through continuous violence.
🩷 “When Israeli army recruits complete basic training, they climb up that mountain and scream out into the echo ‘A second time Masada won’t fall.’ ”

“Peep Show”

🧡 3 ⭐
🧡 I am sure there is a more feminist, queer interpretation of this ending, but I do not currently have the willpower to analyze it on that level. Overall, I was not a fan. The story did not seem to go anywhere and had no deeper meaning or revelation.

“Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother’s Side”

🩷 4 ⭐
🩷 I listened to this as an audiobook. I appreciated the listing as an audiobook, but am not sure if I would have appreciated this repetitive listing if I was reading the short story.

“Camp Sundown”

🧡 3.5 ⭐
🧡 Josh seemed too immature and quick to violence to be a camp director. While I appreciate the philosophical idea, I found Josh’s reactionary actions too unrealistic and annoying to give this short story four stars.
🧡 “ ‘We have decided one thing. You decide the rest. You can make it go away if you want, same as with the rabbi. Like Himmelman disappears, dirty fondler, without a trace. That crime your board can swallow? Then let them swallow this – justice served. A ravage avenged. Put this on your list of crimes.’ ”

“The Reader”

🩷 3 ⭐
🩷 I thought it might have a deeper meaning or a happier ending.

“Free Fruit for Young Widows”

🧡 4 ⭐
🧡 A nice philosophical thought experiment.

[wutheringhheights_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mi aspettavo di trovare tutt'altro; pensavo che avrei letto una raccolta di saggi sull'Olocausto.
Invece ieri ho preso dalla libreria questa piccola raccolta, composta da otto racconti, e l'ho letta tutta d'una fiato.
Ovviamente si parla di ebraismo, di Olocausto, di religione, ma l'importante è COME se ne parla.
Solo un grande talento potrebbe mischiare, così abilmente, la tragedia e una adorabile spesso cinica ironia, traendone un risultato tanto riuscito.
Alcuni racconti presenti nel libro hanno qualcosa di biblico e lontano; altri fanno parte di uno sfondo più quotidiano in cui possiamo riconoscerci. Tutti sono accumunati da una profonda saggezza, dalla prosa semplice eppure intensa di questo giovane scrittore. In tutti i racconti vengono poste delle domande le cui risposte non sono mai banali. Sono risposte profonde e che insegnano veramente qualcosa al lettore.
Racconti che parlano al lettore, diretti al suo cuore e alla sua mente senza mai essere melensi o scontati.
Sono rimasta colpita, e non saprei dire con esattezza quale racconto ho preferito, ma consiglio assolutamente a tutti di recuperare "Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di Anne Frank".

[Moshe Mikanovsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of short stories, all with the Jewish theme, which in some cases are dealing with cliches. It is easier to talk about the stories which I didn't like:
- The Reader - an overall boring story, read on the audio book by the author himself, a big mistake!
- Sister Hills - such a pretentious story, where the building of a settlement in the territories and Halachic arguments are its core.

The more intriguing stories in this collection, in my opinion, are:
- Peep Show - a wonderful psychological experience
- Free Fruit for Young Widows - the moral dilemmas of the survivors
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank - although some of this story felt unrealistic and unbelievable, I liked how it build up to the final conclusion

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

NE is a writer I admire for his intelligence and insight.
However I didnt particularly care for this collection of short stories, mostly because I found it difficult to relate to the humour. I didnt get the in jokes and it wasnt much of a pleasure.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read about a theater in London doing “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” as a play, and it reminded me I’ve never read this collection. Although it turns out I’ve read at least two of the stories before in various periodicals. I always like reading this author’s thought-provoking work. And I want to see that play …

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Nathan Englander and was looking forward to settling in with this new collection. But sadly, I found this work more like a writer's workshop gone awry, albeit with albeit occasional sparks of brilliance, insightful descriptions, and LOL dark humor. The stories seemed to be a weird (beyond quirky) witches brew of Albee, Aesop, and Hitchcock. The title intrigued me because it takes off from from Raymond Carver's amazing What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.

While Englander's title piece had some parallels to Carver's in terms of the relationship subtext, most of the story seemed more akin to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." And yet, this was one of the three stories i thought merited attention. The visit to a South Florida Jewish couple by a born-again Hasidic couple from Israel brings out the the dissonance between their worlds. Through a stoned reality, from the recently discovered stash of the S Florida's teen-aged son, we finally learn the meaning of the Anne Frank reference. Deb insists this is not a parlor game, and I agree that Englander raises a thoughtful, and lingering, question here. Perhaps even several questions....

Another story I semi-enjoyed was Sister Hills, which takes us from the 7-day war to today through the tale of two mothers on 2 West Bank settlements. Great idea, incomplete delivery. Maybe it was Englander's purposeful method to focus on the setup and eerie conclusion. There was too much ellipsis for me; I yearned for more historic detail about the intervening years to complete the landscape. The piece devolved into an Aesop variation with way too much pilpul.

Lastly, Camp Sundown is set in in the Berkshires at an intergenerational camp. Not exactly a romp, It does seems at first to be a good-natured jab at our retirement seniors, with the "Book-club 8" and the two quite-senior leaders of the insurgency. But then, there is the.bridge-playing senior who is accused of having a sinister past and the ghost of the former Rabbi-head of camp, who apparently did have a sinister past. This quasi- Hitchcock-Twilight Zone piece was very disturbing, but not in a way that yielded enough literary merit for me.

Tellingly, I had nothing to say about the other pieces;, other than there is always someone a little "off" about a character or two. Is that what we talk about when we talk about this collection?

[Nick Schroeder · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve heard about Nathan Englander’s volume of short stories it’s likely that you’ve heard about the title story in which two Jewish couples play the “Anne Frank game.” It’s a game where they decide which of their Gentile friends would hide them when the next Holocaust comes. You hear about that story because, despite its complexity, it’s the easiest to explain. While most of the eight stories in this volume center around Jews, Jewish subject matter and issues, in the end the themes and concerns that Englander deals with have relevance beyond their Jewish settings. For example, in “Camp Sundown” Englander examines the issue of justice for Holocaust survivors but in doing so raises questions for all of us. When is an act "justice" and when is it "retribution"? When is a crime so heinous that an individual can be accuser, judge, and jury? “The Reader” explores the relationship between the Writer and the Reader and raises questions important for both members of the equation. In “Free Fruit for Young Widows,” set in contemporary Jerusalem, a father tells his son a story to explain some puzzling behavior on the father’s part. The boy is expecting a story of clear-cut right and wrong and instead gets something to puzzle over. Why? “Because to a story, there is context,” his father tells him. And telling your story and the stories of others matters. In “Everything I Know about My Family on My Mother’s Side,” the “cat-eyed and freckle-faced Bosnian” girlfriend tells the Englander look-alike, “What you do is tell the stories you have, as best you can.” Englander has taken her advice and has told his stories, as best as he can. And that is astonishingly well.

[Barry Levy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most valuable, insightful collections of stories I have ever read. Englander gets into the contemporary Jewish Diaspora psyche on a grand scale. He also well understands the 'new' -- orthodox -- Israeli one. The weave of the social and political relevance of the stories is sheer genius, just as is the incisive humour and epic sense of emotion that gives the book its intellectual drive. Actually, the stories have the feel of mini novels about them (okay, yes, novellas). Whatever, his exploration of the human condition, particularly the Jewish one, is achieved through contemporary Jewish society and dreams, exploring, among other things, a well known but little explored Jewish condition -- hard-headedness. This particularly comes through in Sister Hills, and is a condition that afflicts the politics of the extreme right just as much (incidentally) as it does the 'principled' extreme left. "... the depth of his feelings is what separates him from just about everyone," as David Eggers puts it on the back cover of this book of stories that, in their portrayal of futility, remind of Babel and Singer.

[Goldie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd really love to hate this book, because of all the rich white men on the back cover, but Englander knocks the barnacles off again...there's something so transparently innocent about his work, so honest and ashamed and unvarnished that I find myself utterly sucked in and not wanting it to end. Yup. And unlike those other white writerly men on his back cover, all of whom are extremely competent and smart and well-thought -of, I like Englander's work more and more, not less and less.

Big themes, small people. Loved it.

[Gary the Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another compelling collection of stories from Englander. He manages to develop interesting characters and all the stories are memorable. I had my favorites but I wasn't bored by any of them. Once again, he has demonstrated his impressive imagination, a keen sense of humor steeped in irony and the ability to balance absurdity and realism. His storytelling equals the best of John Cheever. My only complaint is that he hasn't written more fiction.