This jewel of a book richly deserves five stars. The author's depiction of a Jewish family living in a small town in Tennessee in the 1920s is beautifully written. Especially impressive is the way the author wrote about anti-semitism without exploiting the issue for dramatic effect. (Compare this memoir, set in the 1920s, with moronic modern flicks like "School Ties" in which students at a boarding school in the 1950s shout at a Jewish student, "We hate you because you're Jewish." Give me a break.)
Just as the author's family's Jewishness is dealt with subtly, so are the townspeople drawn: all of them seem genuine, not stereotyped. So restrained is the author, yet so talented, that a low-key but powerful scene toward the end of the book sneaked up on me: I found that I had tears running down my face as I read. I miss the townspeople and the author's family. I wish I could go back in time and drive to that town and find all of them still there.
This memoir is far superior to the overrated Angela's Ashes; The Jew Store is the book that should have won the Pulitzer Prize.

Download File Size:6.14 MB

---