THE SHANGHAI KADDISH

by Larry Loebell

THE SHANGHAI KADDISH is a comic historical novel about a half Jewish/half Chinese New York-based stand-up comic, Richard Eisenberg, who has decided to travel to Shanghai to search for the father he has never met. Richard’s mother, Deborah, was sent to Shanghai in the late 1930s as a fourteen year old to escape the Nazis. Now an American citizen living in New Jersey. she does not want Richard to go to China. She has buried her past which contains a secret so dark she’s afraid of the consequences if Richard discovers it. Richard explores Shanghai with a guide who claims to know how to find his father. He visits his mother’s old home and haunts. On the way to finding the truth about his mother’s affair with the Red Army officer who fathered him, Richard runs afoul of the Chinese authorities causing an international free-speech incident that blows up on social media, earning him the praise of his favorite TV talk-show host, the enmity of his mother, and the heart of the woman he loves.

343 pages, Paperback

Published June 14, 2023