Small Worlds (Hardcover, New)

Auspicious debuts for Hoffman, a short-story writer with, here, a first novel, and Abbeville, an art-book publisher making an initial entry into fiction. It's the first in a projected cycle about the inhabitants of Krimsk, a Jewish village on the Polish-Russian border, and their dispersal through the world in the 20th century. The action begins in 1903 on Tisha B'Av, the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Counterpointing the somberness of the observances is a series of interlinking plot elements often descending even to bedroom farce (naked people hiding under bedspreads). Krimsk is one of those miserable little villages immortalized by Sholom Aleichem, Isaac Babel, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, home to pious Jews like the legendary Krimsker Rebbe, Yaakov Moshe Finebaum, and his Hasidic followers. The rebbe has not emerged from his study for five years, and has spoken to no one. This Tisha B'Av, however, he walks into his shul to lead the service as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. The community he reenters is rife with undercurrents that have been created in no small part by his absence: His wife has taken it upon herself to set up a match for their daughter, an only child, with the son of the richest man in Krimsk; Yechiel Katzman, the premier student and teacher at the local yeshiva, is undergoing a crisis of belief; Boruch Levi, the town's junkdealer, is getting secret messages from above on the rear-end of his aging horse, Thunder; and the Poles in neighboring Krimichak are gearing up for a pogrom. Hoffman sorts out all in sprightly fashion and high style, resorting to only one credulity-straining coincidence, and that late enough as to seem completely logical. A highly entertaining, affectionate glance back at the Old World, inflected by a refreshing intellectual clarity that is most refreshing. (Kirkus Reviews)

The little town of Krimsk is about to observe Tisha B'Av, the calamitous day of mourning marking the destruction of the ancient holy Temple in Jerusalem. The beloved rebbe has mysteriously emerged from years of seclusion, and the Krimskers, thirsty for guidance, seek the wonder-working rebbe's saintly advice throughout the night. The encounters prove to be comic, sober, and wise, as arson, adultery, romance, seduction, and violence sweep through Krimsk and into the Polish town of Krimichak across the river. In Krimichak dwells Grannie Zara, the rebbe's rival for power. The women of Krimsk have always secretly crossed the river to consult her, and on this fateful night, one determined woman and one curious boy from the primary class urgently feel the need to visit her. The relationship between the two towns, always uneasy, is in danger of igniting. Back in Krimsk, the rebbe and his wife discuss a groom for their only daughter, and the rebbe summons the man he has chosen. But a different young man, a stranger swept up in the revolutionary ferment stirring all Russia, stops for a while at the Angel of Death, the empty, cursed synagogue. It is he who will face the angry mob from Krimichak as it crosses the bridge into Krimsk with consequences that will affect and astound everyone.

General

Imprint:	Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S.
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	October 1996
First published:	October 1996
Authors:	Allen Hoffman
Dimensions:	211 x 147 x 29mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	280
Edition:	New
ISBN-13:	978-0-7892-0129-4
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction Promotions
LSN:	0-7892-0129-1
Barcode:	9780789201294

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