I love Nathan Englander‘s writing. Dinner at the Center of the Earth was a brilliant 2017 book from the Pulitzer finalist, and he more recently published Kaddish.com (great and a little creepy). I’m now reading an oldie-but-goodie (2012) collection of his short stories I would highly recommend called What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. The title story was published in the New Yorker a few years back.
Englander grew up in Long Island’s Orthodox Jewish community, and his work is infused with inner conflict about his upbringing. One of my favorite lines from What We Talk About… is nestled in a short story called “How We Avenged the Blums.” Englander’s 18-year old character wisely tells a group of younger boys, “It’s a delicate thing being Jewish. … It’s a condition that aggravates the more mind you pay it.”
It’s hilarious truisms like this that make Englander a genius.