Papernick, J: There Is No Other

From the streets of modern Israel to the barrooms of Brooklyn to a suburban New England synagogue, the characters in these10 stories search for love and acceptance in a world scarred by loss and loneliness. In The Madonna of Temple Beth Elohim, an Iraq war veteran sees a vision of the Virgin Mary on the eve of the Jewish high holidays. In My Darling Sweetheart Baby, a working-class drunk waits on his stoop for his disability check and the courage to proclaim his love to a local prostitute. And in the title story There Is No Other, a rage-filled Jewish boy, tormented by his African lineage, arrives at a school Purim party dressed as the prophet Mohammed. Magical, erotic, spiritually penetrating and terrifyingly realistic, these provocative tales continue the storytelling tradition of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Nathan Englander."