The Rabbi in the Attic: And Other Stories

"Never sentimental or simplistic, these low-key stories, written with a contemporary flair and humor, are a rich blend of moral and artistic sensibility." --Kirkus Reviews In an age of minimalists, Eileen Pollack is a writer of rare generosity. The women and men in The Rabbi in the Attic are complex, vivid people to whom something happens. Their stories take place in small towns in the Catskills, a laboratory of mutant mice in nowhere Tennessee, the backwoods of New Hampshire, the "City of Five Smells" in America's heartland--worlds rendered with such love and intensity that the simplest objects seem magical. Many of the narrators look back on their pasts. But don't expect to be lulled by nostalgia. Expect to laugh. To be jolted. And to be moved. Like most of us, these characters are struggling to understand what they have gained and lost by abandoning the passions and moral certainties of youth. As the narrator of the first story discovers when "barbarian" rock fans invade her town, it can be terrifying to be knocked from the "tiny fixed orbit" of conventional life. But if a person can stretch her imagination far enough, she might also be able to glimpse an "elsewhere" beyond the boundaries of ordinary human limitations. This battle between the real and ideal is taken to mythic heights in the title novella, in which a novice rabbi must try to evict her Orthodox predecessor from the house provided by her prickly congregation. Only when she tempers her enthusiasm for the new ways with compassion for those who follow the old ways can Rabbi Bloomgarten begin to care for their souls. Eileen Pollack writes from a Jewish point of view, but her subject is the search for principles that we must all undertake in a world in which religious truths are no longer handed down from parent to child. Just as one of her characters decides to become a "value assessor," the author herself helps us to sort through the jumble of objects, ideas, and memories in our own attics. In doing so, she appeals to our minds and our hearts. Her characters teach us that imagination and empathy are our best hope if we are to understand--and perhaps transcend--the pain in our world. Her language is lyrical, rhythmic, and lush. The images in her stories--a chef's severed hand, a plummeting air conditioner, a village sunk beneath a reservoir--will stay in your mind long after you have finished her book.

About the Author :
Eileen Pollack grew up in Liberty, New York. She has received fellowships from the Michener Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, and her stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, the Literary Review, the AGNI Review, Playgirl, and the New Generation. She lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, and teaches at Tufts University. She won the Pushcart Prize for her story "Past, Future, Elsewhere."

Review :
"These fine, lean, elegant stories share two traits that are becoming increasingly rare in contemporary short fiction: high intelligence and absolute unpredictability. Like the air conditioner in the story of that title, they fall swiftly, and change the lives of their protagonists, but never in the way one thinks they're going to. I will find them hard to forget." --David Leavitt, author of The Indian Clerk "Eileen Pollack possesses a moral intelligence, one which enables her to celebrate the absurd in human situations with gentle, compassionate humor. Her people are morally brave and warm and forgiving in their quests to do some good, and to find meaning, in a fallen world. Eileen is claiming for herself the moral landscape left behind by Bernard Malamud. She is 'listening to God with her own ears, ' and is giving us beautifully crafted stories based on what she has learned. The Rabbi in the Attic is the remarkable first step in what will inevitably become a noteworthy contribution to American literature." --James Alan McPherson, author of Elbow Room "Eileen Pollack's The Rabbi in the Attic is a wonderfully rich and thoughtful new collection, laced with wit and tenderness for human follies of all kinds. Readers cannot fail to see themselves in these stories that track today's stumbling quests for truth, integrity, and purpose." --Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Disturbances in the Field "Eileen Pollack is a gifted new writer whose work will make you laugh and think. Don't miss her splendid book." --Dan Wakefield, author of New York in the Fifties