A Fool's Kabbalah

“A writer of incandescent precision, vibrancy, wit, daring and bewitchment.” — Booklist, STARRED review

“A crushing, startling novel… about the kinds of communal wounds that even mystics struggle to soothe.” — Foreword, STARRED review

“Alternating narratives are steeped in a poignant form of gallows humor.” – The New York Times

“The juxtaposition of Klepfisch’s absurd antics with Sholem’s methodical seriousness gives the novel an intriguing frisson, and the intellectual complexity is shrewdly leavened by the author’s sardonic wit and pithy observations. Stern demonstrates his literary finesse with this life-affirming tale.” —  Publishers Weekly

“Pep­pered with Yid­dishisms, his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences, and Kab­bal­is­tic expo­si­tions, it is a nov­el immersed in Jew­ish cul­ture — a cul­ture marked by tragedy and hope, humor and brilliance.” —  Brian Hillman, Jewish Book Council

“Stern’s fiction, with its deep grounding in Yiddish folklore, has prompted critics such as Cynthia Ozick to hail him as the successor to Isaac Bashevis Singer.” —  Literary Hub

“As with all of his work, Stern draws upon a deep well of Jewish history and folklore in this heartbreaking novel punctuated by Yiddish slang, wordplay, and countless jokes. Where some might try to marshal a kind of sense out of the terror and desolation, Stern focuses on the nonsense of it all.” —  Chapter19

“Part history, part mysticism, “A Fool’s Kabbalah” reminds us that humor and hope can be powerful tools — even against the darkest of evils.” —  Unpacked

“Steeped in Jewish lore, Stern is easily comparable to Isaac Bashevis Singer. However, his humorous yet grotesque descriptions of the shtetl, especially after the Nazis arrive, also calls to mind the squalid village in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Stern writes with unostentatious finesse as his characters stumble between delusion and insight, unfounded hope and unimaginable despair.” —  The Shepherd Express

“…you may find in A Fool’s Kabbalah the light that leads us fools, against all odds and even fate itself, to try to redeem and rebuild our world again and again, throughout history.” —  Historical Novel Society

Steve Stern’s fiction, with its deep grounding in Yiddish folklore, has prompted critics such as Cynthia Ozick to hail him as the successor to Isaac Bashevis Singer. He has won two Pushcart Prizes, an O’Henry Award, a Pushcart Writers’ Choice Award and a National Jewish Book Award.

For thirty years, Stern taught at Skidmore College, the majority of those years as Writer-in-Residence. He has also been a Fulbright lecturer at Bar Elan University in Tel Aviv, the Moss Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Memphis, and Lecturer in Jewish Studies for the Prague Summer Seminars.

Stern is the author of 13 previous books, including The North of God, and most recently, The Village Idiot. He splits his time between Brooklyn and Ballston Spa, New York.

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