Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff

In his first collection of stories since Fabulous Small Jews Joseph Epstein delivers all the pleasures his readers have come to expect: stories of ordinary men confronting the moments that define a life told with the bittersweet humor and loving irony encompassed in the title of the book. These fourteen tales map a very particular world—Jews whose lives are anchored in Chicago—in rich revealing detail even as they brim with universal longings: complex love affairs and unspoken rivalries family triumphs and private disappointments. Epstein who “happens to possess a standup comic’s gift for punch lines” (New York Times Book Review) brings his emphatically grown-up characters to witty rueful and charming life. The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff is a marvelous collection from a master of the short form and one of the most distinctive writers working in America today.