Next Year In Paterson: Tales of the Great Assimilations
This short story collection contemplates the arrivals and departures of a lost urban world. The "Silk City" of Paterson, NJ was once home to one of America's largest Jewish communities, now nearly vanished, almost without a trace. Set in the 1960s, the survivors, children and ghosts of the Holocaust are everywhere in this world, as the Jews of Paterson and beyond confront issues of identity, belief, purpose, and mortality in an America that is quickly changing around them.
An Israeli couple finds more than they bargained for in America. A boy from interfaith parents may be centuries old. A Holocaust survivor finds solace from an unlikely source. The sunny Borscht Belt summer sees a momentary cloud. Second generation children learn survival skills of their own. An unconnected spirit finally completes itself and others...maybe.
Written with wry, lyrical prose and a documentary eye, these "tales of the great assimilations" richly evoke an era of transformation whose echoes can be felt even today.
"A quietly powerful meditation on Jewish identity and assimilation...by turns light and dark, but always deeply humane, 'Next Year in Paterson' invites us to linger in the psychic space between arrival and departure, forgetting and remembrance."
Shelf Unbound
"Laugh out loud funny and emotionally shattering in almost equal measure, 'Next Year In Paterson' evokes a lost world with such loving specificity that you can practically smell the latkes frying in the kitchen. Newark will always be known as Philip Roth territory; Ron Goldberg has now laid claim to Paterson."
Glenn Kenny, Author of "Made Men: The Story of 'Goodfellas'" and "The World is Yours: The Story of 'Scarface'"
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