God's Ear
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"Hilarious . . . Lerman proves herself mistress not only of side-splitting one-liners but also of pregnant perceptions about faith and virtue" (Publishers Weekly).
From a novelist whose characters have ranged from ancient deities to suburban housewives to Eleanor Roosevelt, God's Ear is the story of a rabbi who opens his heart to God, only to have every shnorrer in his congregation fill it with pain.
Yussel Fetner's ancestors had been such rabbis. Yussel, the last of the Fetner line, is not. Yussel turns his back on a thousand years of Fetner destiny, eschewing his family's twinned piety and poverty to sell life insurance in New York. But the history of a thousand years is not to be thrown away so lightly. On his death, Yussel's father discovers he will be unable to enter heaven until Yussel repents and enters the faith. The old rabbi will have to dip into a kit bag full of family lore, Hasidic tales, Kabbalistic wisdom, outright lies, and Jewish justifications to tease, trick, and torment his son until he accepts the pain of loving God.
"A unique voice—wildly funny, achingly spiritual, profoundly Jewish." —The New York Times Book Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like a Chagall painting translated to print, this passionate, hilarious, God-infused novel centers on Yussell Fetner, Hasidic rabbi turned rich insurance salesman. His clients think he has the gift of prophecy, inherited from his rabbi father, whose own prophetic gifts descend directly from King David. Summoned from Far Rockaway to Kansas by his dying father, Yussel finds himself on a journey into the desert to locate an assemblage of three palm trees and a tent, where, the Rabbi announces, God has decreed that Yussel must found his congregation. Yussel explodes: he doesn't want a congregation, especially not in Kansas; he wants to be in Rockaway selling insurance. But he hasn't time to argue becuase his father dies almost at once (though he returns from time to time to guide Yussel in his ascent toward oneness with the Almighty). The incongruities of Talmudic worship in Kansas are further leavened by ribald Yiddishisms, and solemnized by informed reference to Jewish law. The very opposite of a minimalist, Lerman ( The Book of the Night ) proves herself mistress not only of side-splitting one-liners but also of pregnant perceptions about faith and virtue.
