The Book of Blam

<i>The Book of Blam</i> Aleksandar Ti&#154;ma&#146;s &#147;extended kaddish . . . [his] masterpiece&#148; (Kirkus Reviews) is a modern-day retelling of the book of Job. The war is over. Miroslav Blam walks along the former Jew Street and he remembers. He remembers Aaron Gr&#252;n the hunchbacked watchmaker; and Eduard Fiker a lamp merchant; and Jakob Mentele a stove fitter; and Arthur Spitzer a grocer who played amateur soccer and had non-Jewish friends; and S&#225;ndor V&#233;rtes a lawyer who was a Communist. All dead. As are his younger sister and his best friend a Serb both of whom joined the resistance movement; and his mother and father in the infamous Novi Sad raid in January 1942&#151;when the Hungarian Arrow Cross executed 1400 Jews and Serbs on the banks of the Danube and tossed them into the river.<br><br>Blam lives. The war he survived will never be over for him.