By Joseph Epstein, a short story written in the traditional manner of laying out character by character. Even as the first person narrator of Lou tells the story of his brother Eli who is a writer, the telling is more telling of the narrator and his own resentments and desires.
But before I’ve even finished it I wanted to quote two passages that may have something to do with why I’m liking the story, in that I can relate to it.
“Jews went in for this left-wing stuff more in New York than in Chicago. Here we’re happy just to make a living and get some kind of fix on reality. Our hands are full trying to cope with the world as it is. We don’t waste a lot of time on the world as it ought to be.”
And this:
” ‘I see your brother’s got his ass in a sling,’ Al Hirsch said, smiling the kind of smile lawyers do when they discover fresh news of greed or other human depravity of the kind off which they make their living.”
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology