Entertainment
7 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
Some years ago, when the debate about “likable characters” and their desirability (or not) in fiction was still lighting up the more literary corners of social media, I attended a panel discussion in which the novelist Ottessa Moshfegh put the whole issue convincingly to rest: “I don’t even like likable characters in real life,” she said, or words to that effect. “Why would I want to put them in my books?”
This week we recommend three works of fiction with characters who are unlikable to varying degrees: Rumaan Alam’s novel about a young woman seduced by proximity to wealth, Jami Attenberg’s novel about the members of a dysfunctional family, and Tony Tulathimutte’s story collection about social outcasts who deal with alienation very, very badly. The characters may not be likable, but the books, happily, are.
Also recommended: new poetry from Danez Smith, a biography of the Washington insider Pamela Harriman, a memoir by the newswoman Connie Chung and a reflection on the state of Judaism in America today. Happy reading.— Gregory Cowles
TABLETS SHATTERED:
The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life
Joshua Leifer
Both a history of Judaism in America and a cri de coeur from a heartbroken member of the tribe, Leifer’s survey reckons with the splintering effects of secularism, Zionism and ultra-Orthodox politicization to argue that American Jewry is, if not quite extinct, on its way out.
Credit…“Leifer concludes that the only way to preserve Judaism is to return to observance, the byzantine rituals that keep Jews apart from everyone else. … The book is not written as a thundering prophecy; instead, it’s an ethnic memoir.”
From Sam Kriss’s review
Dutton | $32
