Kaaterskill Falls

by Allegra Goodman

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "A richly textured portrait . . . an intimate look at a closed Orthodox community."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST - A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

It is 1976. And the tiny upstate New York town of Kaaterskill Falls is bustling with summer people in dark coats, fedoras, and long, modest dresses. Living side by side with Yankee year-rounders, they are...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385323905
• ISBN13: 9780385323901
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Dell Publishing Company
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

My Favorite by Allegra Goodman

I first read this book a few years ago and have since re-read it, recommended it, and given it to many people. The setting, an orthodox Jewish family in the Catskills one summer in the 1970's, does not sound very promising as a popular reading book, but of course that's the joy of really great writing. And Allegra Goodman is definitely a great writer: funny, insightful, casually profound. I've enjoyed everything I've read by her, beginning with a short story I found in a collection of Great Stories by Jewish Writers. Totally unknown to me and up next to works by Singer and other icons, her story in the collection was easily the best, in my opinion. I'm not Jewish, I might add, nor particularly interested in "the varieties of religious experience," but then she doesn't write about religion per se. Her characters are just very interesting people. That said, the culture her characters inhabit is fascinating and entirely accessible. I used to teach Comparative Literature at the college level, and I would definitely recommend this book to teachers, and students, as well as anyone else who has an imagination and knows good writing when they see it.

One of my favorite books of all time

The first time I tried to read this book, I put it down after about 70 pages. Nothing was happening! Then I picked it up again and was mesmerized. Allegra Goodman tells this story through the eyes of multiple characters -- I can't even count how many points of view she uses -- and it works, in a quiet, seamless way. She makes it look easy to keep track of that many characters and have them all work together. This is a vast novel that suggests a great depth. It is a deeply spiritual novel without being "religious."

A window into a contemplative but vivid life

I see that other reviewers have been put off by the lack of "action" in this novel, but I saw the book as contemplative rather than slow, "intense as prayer," as the book itself says. I often feel as though we assume that women in deeply religious communities are mindless and oppressed, but Goodman's depiction of the internal struggles of Elizabeth Shulman, the young mother in an strictly Orthodox family, made her seem like a whole, real person, not just a stereotype in a wig and modest clothing. (She is also quite a bit more likeable than the character Sharon of Goodman's book Paradise Park, who was by comparison a self-obsessed airhead.)Definitely my favorite of Goodman's books.

A good book, but not a textbook

I read Kaaterskill Falls for school last year, and while I thought it was a good book, I wouldn't advise that te reader accepts the details about daily Jewish life as the way thigs are for all Jews. Goodman's desciptions of the way characters grow in many ways in beautiful, and realistic. But, there are many Orthadox Jewish communities that are very different from the Kirshners. Often, the Rav does not control every minute detail of the lives of his congregants. And about the status of woman, there are many jewish women who work outside the home, often at jobs that require college degrees, because with families that large, two incomes are often necessary. Also, certain slip ups that Goodman made about Orthadox Judaism suggests she is writing from an outside perspective. For example, when the Rav tells Elizabeth to close her store, either there would have been a third person in the room with him, or the door would have been left open, because of a law called Isur Yichud, which forbids an unrelated man and woman to be in the same room alone. Also, Goodman seemed unfamiliar with the way Rabbis reach decisions. Being bullied by their wives or anooyed by congregants does not count. In a real life situation, Elizabeth probably would have been told not to cater parties with non-kosher food, but the store would not have closed unless the Rav could base his arguments on legal writings such as the talmud, not petty immaturity. But I suppose it makes a good plot device. All in all, its a good book. But don't consider the religiosity of the Kirshners to be like that of all Othadox Jews.

Kaaterskill Falls Rocks!

As someone with largely Catholic heritage (the expression "recovering Catholic" applies neatly here), I worried that I would find no point of entry into Goodman's book for one who knows little about Judaism and especially Orthodox Judaism. How wrong I was. In her careful chronicle of a relationship, a community, a family of people with faith, Kaaterskill Falls eludes cliche' or severity. That overweening, heavy sense of Faith that so often invades novels involving religion, so that my fellow 20-somethings and I cower and read High Fidelity instead -- that is nowhere to be found here. Instead, against the backdrop of tangibly beautiful, almost edible countrysides, men and women shed their city personas and relax. You taste the cherry rugelach they eat, you feel the heat of an argument based on faith -- you must have had one at some point in your life -- and this book reflects such everyday experience with subtlety and wit.The love story is so true; so full of angles and points, and tiny discussions about daily life. Goodman leaves in the tangible and leaves out "summer vacation" schmaltz, the absence of which one reviewer bemoans. A beautiful, respectful, unintimidating novel.