The Samaritan Treasure

By Marianne Luban

Richly told tales based on figures and events from contemporary life and the Jewish story-telling tradition.

Reminiscent of biblical stories, oral histories, and the work of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Luban's stories illuminate the history and the complexities of the Jewish experience, with settings in ancient Samaria, in Poland, in the concentration camps and in the settlements of the modern-day West Bank. With the reader, they encounter reincarnations, visitors from the stars, seductions, and the lure of hidden treasures.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 091827379X
• ISBN13: 9780918273796
• Release Date: July 1990
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"Samaritan Treasure"-- A Summer Discovery

By Jack Yeager As a writer, Marianne Luban could be described as the offspring of a not-so-holy union of Jane Austen and Isaac Bashevis Singer, two authors she obviously reveres. One wonders why she does not pen a Jane Austen sequel like so many others have done because she is able to ape the novelist's style to a tee in "The Jew of Bath", a story in the collection which is both humorous and moving as it portrays Austen's reflections on her past while languishing on her deathbed. At any rate, even Jane gets mixed up with the Jews because the Jewish experience throughout time is the theme of this assembly of short stories. Singer wrote about the Jews of Poland prior to WWII and as exiles afterward, but Luban paints on a bigger canvas in more vivid colors, even though she has not yet achieved Singer's mastery of the narrative. In the title story, Luban weaves a most intriguing yarn that starts with King Ahab's problems with his wife, Jezebel, which oddly but convincingly segues into the British occupation of Palestine. There a Uri-Geller-type character, Naftali, keeps the secret of a vast hoard of ancient gold plus a very different "treasure" that is sought by extraterrestrials. "Tomorrow You'll Forget" is a strong piece with a terrific, ironic conclusion that insightfully examines the price of survival. The love affair between a suave English actor and an Italian bombshell is the scenario of "The Last of Rafaela". The best story in the collection, "Professor Mondshane", shows Luban's remarkable ability to get inside the head of a middle-aged man when a piece of forbidden fruit is dangled before him in the guise of a defiant but gifted teenager. The professor, a voice teacher from Vienna and a Holocaust survivor, must figure out how to survive his star pupil's infatuation with him. A line from the story, "A man does not lust after his own saviour" is the key to the dilemma, but Luban does a fine job of defining how strange combinations of humans are able to redeem one another.