The Fragmented Life of Don Jacobo Lerner

by Isaac Goldemberg

Published in 1977 to great critical acclaim, this remarkable novel is set in the 1930s within a small community of Jews in Peru. Don Jacobo Lerner, an immigrant from czarist Russia, lies on his deathbed trying to piece together his life. Told through the testimony of family and friends, through newspaper articles and cultural announcements, and, most memorably, in the haunting words of his bastard son, Efra�n, the details of Jacobo Lerner�s fragmented world emerge. Finally, Lerner becomes a character of universal significance, a tragic but heroic prototype of the Wandering Jew.

229 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Rossana Karunaratna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent narrative style which takes you along a period of time of the Peruvian history and the needs of the Jewish community.

[Josh Fogelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a couple dozen pages to get into, but once I did I enjoyed it. A jewish-peruvian "as i lay dying" of sorts. Short, sweet, provoking, enjoyable.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

The night before he died, Jacobo Lerner thought of the mild catastrophes that would be occasioned by his passing. He imagined his sister-in-law living on, unable to love anyone else. His brother Moises he imagined bankrupt, abandoned by his son, asking for help from friends. His mistress, dona Juana Paredes Ulloa, he imagined reviled by everyone because she had not known how to squeeze money out of him in payment for her love. He imagined his sister-in-law's sister, Miriam Abramowitz, in deep repentance because she had not married him, who was now dead and buried. His son, Efrain, he imagined at the task of reconstructing his father from what was said by others. And Efrain's mother, who continued to live in the village where Lerner had met her, he imagined a victim of her father's insults for not having married the Jew while it was still possible.

He thought, too, almost melancholically, that his last will and testament would not have any effect whatever on whether or not these things came to pass.

[Mario Domínguez Parra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Canela en rama.