The Five Book of Moses Lapinsky eBook

By Karen X. Tulchinsky

Book Overview

In 2003, a mild-mannered historian named Moses Lapinsky jots down notes for a biography. It is to tell the tale of his father Sonny, a famous Jewish- Canadian boxer. As Moses buries himself in his research, he is transported back in time to the pivotal events of his father's life. So begins the first of the five sections of the novel, each narrated by a different third person. Crammed with humour, sorrow, folly, bravery and the richness of the everyday, Tulchinsky traces the remarkable fortunes of generations of the Lapinsky family, bringing life to the character of an entire community. August 1933: a sweltering Toronto night. At Christie Pits Park, during the ninth inning of an amateur-league softball game, four youths unfurl a white sheet emblazoned with a large black Swastika, lift their arms and shout, "Heil Hitler " Within seconds, a group of Jewish youths charge in a struggle to capture the flag, setting off a four-hour race riot (the largest ever to occur, before or since, in Toronto), involving fifteen thousand people and injuring hundreds. The riot at Christie Pits Park was the culmination of weeks of political and racial tension. Tulchinsky has re-created this and other defining historical moments in vivid detail, taking us inside the life of one immigrant Jewish family. We trace the fortunes of the Lapinskys--in particular the four sons--from the pivotal moment of the riots, through the years of the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and all its attendant social tensions, World War II, into the post-war era that began to emerge in the early 1950s. A stunning, engaging and moving fictional treatment of a defining moment for a family, a city, a nation and a continent struggling with ideas of freedom, tolerance and identity in a world broken by war.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889226466
• ISBN13: 9780889226463
• Release Date: October 2010
• Publisher: Talonbooks, Limited
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A simple delight

It was purely happenchance that I came across this novel. I was in a musty, basement second-hand bookshop, looking for something else entirely, when I found it. Well, 'we found each other' is probably more appropriate, given the end result: an almost perfectly satisfying reading experience. (Full disclosure: I was sold by the cover...and the jacket blurbs. What can I tell you; I'm a sucker for great artwork and tasty marketing. To be truthful, the packaging, the cue words, the intimation of what the novel promised was what had me reaching for my wallet.) My personal reading preference is for literatary novels, featuring prose that has me, as a writer, wishing I'd written it. I crave if not the transcendent, then the staggering. As novelist, I have a love of powerful prose. As a screenwriter, I have an appreciation of the visual. But either way, I love a great story. A tale well-told. 'The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky' is strong on the storytelling...if not exactly scoring top marks on the literary impact. The story spans (if only tangentally) a century and three continents. And yet it's fiercely focused on a Toronto family. It has Sonny Lapinsky at its core, but everyone plays a part, everyone has something to contribute. What I appreciated most about Ms Tulchinsky's efforts was that she chose to mix things up chronologically, and how well she managed the mix; the layout was refreshing. And I never felt anything but confidence coming off the page. I don't think 'masterful' is too great an adjective to use in this regard. As for the actual writing, her literary 'chops'... Well, I chose the title of my review carefully. Her style is simple. As in 'spare and effective'. There is nothing strained about it, nothing flowery. It reminded me of Richard Russo's...although hers is even more factual. That she writes in the present-tense undoubtedly magnifies the effect. No, it's not Ann-Marie MacDonald's 'Fall on Your Knees'. (And granted, I'm not sure Ms Tulchinsky has it in her to write that way, or whether she'd even want to.) But the novel did captivate me completely from start to finish. And in conclusion, I'll pay Ms Tulchinsky as heartfelt a compliment as I can: it would make an incredible film/mini-series. Oh; did I mention I was a screenwriter...?

Tulchinsky's Latest is a Total-Knock-Out

The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky by Karen X. Tulchinsky is a phenomenal deviation from her previous style. Although I have come to love her wit, humorous characterizations and dialogues in previous books, I appreciate the maturity of her latest achievement. Her novel is based on the Christie Pits riots and depicts the four brothers of the Lapinsky family struggling through the depression into the fifties. In so doing, she connects a multitude of characters on whom the brothers rely and paints an exceptional portrayal of resistance. Tulchinsky's keen eye for injustice, which her reader's have become accustomed to, is different and arguable much more advanced than in her previous fiction. Centering her characters around the horribly ambivalent situation of Canadian Jewish immigrants during the Second World War, she captures a slice of Canadian identity often left untold. In addition, she convincingly exposes hypocrisies surrounding her closeted gay character through his relationship to the military and his family and surroundings. As tragic as many of the chapters of The Five Books are, Tulchinsky still delivers humour and moments of lightness laced with profound triumph. It is no small feat to build such a massive conglomerate of intertwined tales around a central metaphor. In The Five Books, that metaphor is boxing or, if one wants to make a broader leap, fighting. The book demonstrates what I believe Tulchinsky is trying to share - that fighting must be methodical, structured, practiced and, most importantly, that the struggle to win a fight begins and ends in the heart.