What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 2,470 ratings · 508 reviews

These eight new stories from the celebrated novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander display a gifted young author grappling with the great questions of modern life, with a command of language and the imagination that place Englander at the very forefront of contemporary American fiction.

The title story, inspired by Raymond Carver’s masterpiece, is a provocative...more

Hardcover, 207 pages

Published February 7th 2012 by Knopf

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2012

30th out of 100 books — 205 voters

Best Books of 2012

489th out of 2,643 books — 7,544 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Mar 25, 2012 brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

i kinda dug this book. d'jew?
d'jew like it?
it's probably the jewiest book i've ever read.
which, generally speaking, is a good thing -- i like jewy books.
actually, i've read 2 bks of fiction this month, both by jews, & both very jewy. ben marcus's novel contains repeated use of the phrase 'jewhole' -- which, sadly, is not a reference to where pornstar trixxxie silverstein asks co-stars to plunge their throbbing manmeat. but englander trounces him in the jew dept: this thing is filled to th...more i kinda dug this book. d'jew?
d'jew like it?
it's probably the jewiest book i've ever read.
which, generally speaking, is a good thing -- i like jewy books.
actually, i've read 2 bks of fiction this month, both by jews, & both very jewy. ben marcus's novel contains repeated use of the phrase 'jewhole' -- which, sadly, is not a reference to where pornstar trixxxie silverstein asks co-stars to plunge their throbbing manmeat. but englander trounces him in the jew dept: this thing is filled to the brim with with naked rabbis, homicidal holocaust-surviving geriatrics, apple-bong smoking hasidim, israelis, palestinians, etc.

i don't wanna generalize b/c there are plenty of jews who are as dumb as gentiles, but jews really kicked some literary ass in the 20th century: you've got the (un)holy trinity (roth, mailer, bellow), then there's salinger, malamud, & potok. the 2 other roths: henry & joseph. kafka. koestler. canetti. the list goes on...

but jews are no longer the 'outsider' they once were and i fear their art will suffer as a result. this is why it's critically important in this time of rampant assimilation that we strive to keep jews marginalized and down-at-heel so that we can continue to enjoy their books, films, and diamond settings. if too many jews come to enjoy the midgrade happiness that accompanies a time-share in sarasota and a big-bosomed shiksa wife, then they'll amount to just another race of nicholas sparksteins and john grishamwiczes. this is why i insist that we don't let 'em get too comfortable at the country clubs, if you know what i mean.

englander's collection is an example of the effects of assimiliation: there are some first rate stories here, but overall it all feels a bit too well adjusted for my taste. but i can't deny a certain fondness -- there're some hysterical and truly heartfelt moments (particularly in stories 1, 5, & 8), and englander grew up a few towns away from where i did and currently teaches at the college i attended; i'm sure we've got multiple 'degrees of separation' and could have an all-night nutso session of 'jewish geography.'*

englander's got more money and brains than i do, but i've got the gorgeous shiksa wife (to be)... so he's winning on the jew scale. but just gimme a few years.

*jewish geography:
Brian: I think we have a friend in common: Stacey Feldstein? She went to U of A and now lives in Los Angeles?
Nathan: Wait... was she friends with Elyssa Greenbaum? I think they went to Camp Lokanda together. Don't they live on the upper east side?
Brian: No, you're thinking of Marni Kreitzer. She married Jonathan Tobias. And they just moved ---
Nathan: To Chicago! Yes. Daniel Shemtov's wife, Shosana, went to school in Long Island with her. (less)

31 likes · like · see review

Aug 05, 2012 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars

After not finishing his novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, I was happy to have my confidence in Englander (and in my own sense of humor) restored after reading the title story. There's an even more hilarious -- and darker -- story later in the collection that reaffirmed this feeling.

The stories range from comic and devastating to devastatingly dark, with different styles, including a parable of sorts and one in the form of creative nonfiction that emphasizes a couple of things are true in bot...more

6 likes · like · see review

Feb 11, 2012 Anmiryam rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first and last stories in this collection are brilliant. They are intellectually satisfying, funny, and emotionally wrenching. In them Englander manages to address issues and themes that have run through my life, and I suspect many Jewish and half-Jewish (that would be me) Americans born after WWII and the founding of Israel. What role does Judaism as a religion play in our lives? If we do not practice, are we still Jewish? How do we know what we would have done if caught in the horror that...more The first and last stories in this collection are brilliant. They are intellectually satisfying, funny, and emotionally wrenching. In them Englander manages to address issues and themes that have run through my life, and I suspect many Jewish and half-Jewish (that would be me) Americans born after WWII and the founding of Israel. What role does Judaism as a religion play in our lives? If we do not practice, are we still Jewish? How do we know what we would have done if caught in the horror that was the Holocaust? Who can we trust and how do we judge? It is a measure of Englander's talent that these tales could also be read by someone who does not share the same background and their power would not be diminished. If every story in this collection were as good as these two, this would be a five star book.

Unfortunately, although the pieces in between have their moments, they fail to reach the same level in terms of craft or emotional punch. Englander has still to find a strong balance between incorporating talmudic, magical and folkloric elements into his work in ways that do not feel forced. Too often the experimentation doesn't deepen the reader's experience of the emotional state of the characters, but distracts from it. Did we really need the naked rabbis in "Peep Show" to feel Ari/Alan's guilt over abandoning his usual homeward commute to dash into a Times Square dive? Nor is the choice to promote the central character of "The Reader" to the iconic "The Author" give universality and heft to it's look at aging, and the indiscriminate ability of time to destroy us without sympathy. I would have preferred a more particularized central character who would have elicited my sympathy for his plight rather than being pushed to see this small, uneventful tale as a discourse on the human condition.

Still, even when he doesn't completely succeed, Englander writes with grace, sharp observation and emotional heft. I have looked forward to this new collection since I picked up his first, "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges," on a whim when it was first published. I look forward to his next as well.(less)

12 likes · like · see review

Oct 02, 2012 Dave rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: shortfiction

I really enjoyed this collection of stories. The first story, for which the collection is named, owes more than just the play on the title to Raymond Carver. Like Carver, Englander is able to capture the hints of disappointment or betrayal in a few words between intimates. Also like Carver, so much happens between the commas and periods of a conversation. Don't get me wrong, Englander definitely has his own voice and way of telling a story. Some stories even dip into dreamlike fantasy, like Peep...more

5 likes · like · see review

May 09, 2012 Carole rated it 3 of 5 stars

I am a huge fan of Nathan Englander and was looking forward to settling in with this new collection. But sadly, I found this work more like a writer's workshop gone awry, albeit with albeit occasional sparks of brilliance, insightful descriptions, and LOL dark humor. The stories seemed to be a weird (beyond quirky) witches brew of Albee, Aesop, and Hitchcock. The title intrigued me because it takes off from from Raymond Carver's amazing What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.

While Englander...more I am a huge fan of Nathan Englander and was looking forward to settling in with this new collection. But sadly, I found this work more like a writer's workshop gone awry, albeit with albeit occasional sparks of brilliance, insightful descriptions, and LOL dark humor. The stories seemed to be a weird (beyond quirky) witches brew of Albee, Aesop, and Hitchcock. The title intrigued me because it takes off from from Raymond Carver's amazing What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.

While Englander's title piece had some parallels to Carver's in terms of the relationship subtext, most of the story seemed more akin to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." And yet, this was one of the three stories i thought merited attention. The visit to a South Florida Jewish couple by a born-again Hasidic couple from Israel brings out the the dissonance between their worlds. Through a stoned reality, from the recently discovered stash of the S Florida's teen-aged son, we finally learn the meaning of the Anne Frank reference. Deb insists this is not a parlor game, and I agree that Englander raises a thoughtful, and lingering, question here. Perhaps even several questions....

Another story I semi-enjoyed was Sister Hills, which takes us from the 7-day war to today through the tale of two mothers on 2 West Bank settlements. Great idea, incomplete delivery. Maybe it was Englander's purposeful method to focus on the setup and eerie conclusion. There was too much ellipsis for me; I yearned for more historic detail about the intervening years to complete the landscape. The piece devolved into an Aesop variation with way too much pilpul.

Lastly, Camp Sundown is set in in the Berkshires at an intergenerational camp. Not exactly a romp, It does seems at first to be a good-natured jab at our retirement seniors, with the "Book-club 8" and the two quite-senior leaders of the insurgency. But then, there is the.bridge-playing senior who is accused of having a sinister past and the ghost of the former Rabbi-head of camp, who apparently did have a sinister past. This quasi- Hitchcock-Twilight Zone piece was very disturbing, but not in a way that yielded enough literary merit for me.

Tellingly, I had nothing to say about the other pieces;, other than there is always someone a little "off" about a character or two. Is that what we talk about when we talk about this collection?(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 25, 2012 A. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

I loved Nathan Englander's debut collection of short stories For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. There were moments in that book that I felt like Bernard Malamud (a writer I love so outlandishly that tears come to my eyes when I type his name) was walking among us again.

Englander's new collection shook in my hands as I opened it - my excitement was so great, my longing so intense. For the most part, he delivers. Here are the highlights:

Best story: The title story is a hilarious and poignant dep...more I loved Nathan Englander's debut collection of short stories For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. There were moments in that book that I felt like Bernard Malamud (a writer I love so outlandishly that tears come to my eyes when I type his name) was walking among us again.

Englander's new collection shook in my hands as I opened it - my excitement was so great, my longing so intense. For the most part, he delivers. Here are the highlights:

Best story: The title story is a hilarious and poignant depiction of two couples playing a parlour game that becomes a serious comment on themselves and the holocaust. It's part satire, part spoof, part homage to Raymond Carver, but it's a powerful piece of writing that gets the collection off with a bang.

Best story runner up: All of the other stories. There isn't a story that isn't at least good in the batch. Englander explores many different modes of story telling and the collection is quite varied. Some are long on history, some take place in the Middle East, some here in America, some seem painfully autobiographical and some seem archtypal. For my money, the other two stories that I'd recommend are How We Avenged the Blums and Free Fruit for Young Widows.

Best section in a story: The third part of the Sister Hills is a magnificent tale of ancient superstitions meeting the modern world. I felt like Englander was channelling I.B. Singer in this tale of a girl who must abandon her family and take care of a neighbor because of an oath her mother took a quarter of a century earlier. Englander is giving us a history of the Israeli settlements in this, at times absurdist, tale of two founding families.

Best passage in the book: In Peep Show, the overwrought Allen imagines that he sees his mother before him. Englander writes, "Allen's mother is wearing stockings and garters. In the place where other such women keep tips, she has a wad of Kleenex."
"Do you need some tissue, Ari? Did you remember to bring?" She gets up to hand him some.

That passage is funny all on its own, but for me it has some personal meaning. The only time that I wish my wife was more like my mother is when I'm somewhere and need a tissue. My wife never has them and my Jewish mother always had them. I've brought this issue up time and time again with my wife, to no avail. I showed her the Englander story and she said, "Okay, okay I get it. But I still don't see why you can't carry your own tissue."
(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Apr 11, 2013 Joanne rated it 2 of 5 stars

I am not a great fan of short stories so it is unusual for me to read a book of short stories. However, I heard Mr. Englander interviewed on NPR and decided I would see if I could get it from the library. It is a short book of short stories so it read very quickly. There were about two or three stories that I really liked and the rest could have been left out of the book. I felt that some could be the start of possobly longer works, like novellas. And then the problem, besides my not caring for...more

like · see review

Apr 07, 2013 Liviania rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have a friend who is crazy about Nathan Englander's short stories. WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK is his first collection since his debut FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES in 1999, but he's already considered a master of the form, a peer of Raymond Carver. No wonder the eponymous story references Carver's famous "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love."

I'm not sure it was the best choice to lead the collection, no matter how wonderful the title. It's the story of two cou...more I have a friend who is crazy about Nathan Englander's short stories. WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK is his first collection since his debut FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES in 1999, but he's already considered a master of the form, a peer of Raymond Carver. No wonder the eponymous story references Carver's famous "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love."

I'm not sure it was the best choice to lead the collection, no matter how wonderful the title. It's the story of two couples, the wives best friends in school now reunited for the first time. One lives in Israel, now converted to Hasidic Judaism with her husband. The other is more secular and lives with her husband, the narrator, in Florida. Yet for all the story pushes their differences, there's a sameness to the characters. It lacks the punch of the better stories in the collection.

My two favorites are "Sister Hills" and "Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother's Side." "Sister Hills" is a series of snapshots from 1973 to 2011 of two hills not far outside of Jerusalem and the families who live on them. There's tension between the colonizing Israelis and the Arabs, but the biggest bitterness comes from within the community, building to a funnily nasty conclusion. And it's all held together by the intense portrait of Rena. The story did briefly lose me in a scene showcasing truly devilish wit on Rena's part that delved too deeply into Jewish law and tradition for me to follow.

"Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother's Side" is a brilliant, clever title and the story lives up to it. I liked how it moved from a very broad opening to sharp focus, vignettes moving back and forth in time. Even when broad, the understanding of human nature is keen. "The wife faces the husband, and the point she argues is so large, it's as if the wife believes traffic will stop for it when the light changes, as if, should the cars roll on, it's worth being run down to see the point made (115, ARC)." But it's even tighter when it moves into focus and examines family stories, and how they develop and how two cousins might tell the same family story completely differently. It's a very personal look at the past and how much it can mean once you know it, even if it is subjective. I was slightly bothered by the meta in the story, the narrator being a writer named Nathan. I'm not sure the flourish added to the tale.

I quite liked "Peep Show," "The Reader," and "Camp Sundown," but they were more uneven reads. "Peep Show" forgoes realism for a dreamlike logic that's compelling once you go with it. "The Reader" has a couple of nice shifts in tone. As for "Camp Sundown," I really enjoyed the beginning but the story lost me about half to three quarters of the way through. It was darkly comic, but then the strings showed too much - I had to roll my eyes at some of the reversed symbolism.

I think Englander is an exciting writer and can see why my friend is so enamored. He has smooth, readable prose and his stories are nicely observed with a bit of humor to alleviate their darkness. But I found him thematically repetitive and some of the questions he asks just don't resonate with me. There is much discussion of what it means to be Jewish, and I found some of the stories to be strangely contradictory. For me, this is more of a borrow-from-the-library than buy book.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Feb 21, 2013 Barry Levy rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most valuable, insightful collections of stories I have ever read. Englander gets into the contemporary Jewish Diaspora psyche on a grand scale. He also well understands the 'new' -- orthodox -- Israeli one. The weave of the social and political relevance of the stories is sheer genius, just as is the incisive humour and epic sense of emotion that gives the book its intellectual drive. Actually, the stories have the feel of mini novels about them (okay, yes, novellas). Whatever, his e...more

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 08, 2012 Ronald Fischman rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: all readers

Recommended to Ronald by: library

Nathan Englander (http://www.nathanenglander.com/bio/) doesn't need my glowing review for his excellent 2012 collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, but maybe you do. The winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Jewish fiction, the 42-year-old writer has re-established the short story as the prime vehicle for the relating of history and the human reaction to it.

I know something about writing history in fiction. My novel 3 Through History: Love in the Time of Republicans (https:/...more Nathan Englander (http://www.nathanenglander.com/bio/) doesn't need my glowing review for his excellent 2012 collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, but maybe you do. The winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Jewish fiction, the 42-year-old writer has re-established the short story as the prime vehicle for the relating of history and the human reaction to it.

I know something about writing history in fiction. My novel 3 Through History: Love in the Time of Republicans (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...), covers secular Jewish life during the death and rebirth of History. From the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union to the rise of violent Islamic jihad, I tell the story of three lives, up through their portentous meeting. Englander proves to be a true master in the parallel art of writing fiction in history. In particular, Englander creates the post-Holocaust traditional Jewish world in all of its pleasure, pain, and contradiction.

The collection can be divided into three themes: Direct reaction to the Holocaust, Haredism meets modernity, and coming of age in the shadow of antisemitism. The stories take place equally on Long Island, where the author hails from and where I spent the happiest years of my professional life, and in Israel, where the struggles within the Jewish community turn Jew against Jew, community against community.

The title story might be a shocker to non-Jews and the majority of Jews who lack a direct connection to the destruction of the Jewish civilization in Europe. Jews have reacted to lesser devastation, a community or a country at a time, either by abandoning the old mores or replicating their shtetl, lock, stock, and shtreimel. What would be done if the goal was annihilation, not simply exile? The "Anne Frank Game" is a macabre parlor game in which the assembled Jews ask each other that if a Nazi regime came to power in (pick one: England, the US, South Africa, Canada), what non-Jew would they hide with? Who would risk everything to do the right thing?

Another Holocaust story is at an Elderhostel bridge retreat that takes place on the same lake as a sleepaway camp. It turns out that, among Jews of a certain age, the little word "camp" is loaded. At once, it meant the Haredi bungalow colonies of upstate New York, the wider Movement camps like Ramah or Harlam, and ...Auschwitz.

In New York and in Israel, the fight is between those who insist on recreating everything, including dress and language, from the home village, those who follow ritual law but dress in a way more consistent with the conservative members of the new community, and those who, whether the observe traditional Jewish law in private, are indistinguishable from the secular world around them. One story about this struggle tells of two Haredi families who establish an outpost in the Arab West Bank. One prospers, while the other falls into bereavement and madness. The outpost becomes an established city. The mad widow and bereaved mother is just as forgotten as the displaced Arabs.

The last category in this collection is the coming of age story. It's one thing to grow up in bucolic Miller Place or Greenport on the North Shore of Long Island. It is altogether different to live on the South Shore, and fight for your right to attend the same schools, play on the same playground, even breathe the same air as racists, antisemites, and xenophobes. The Jewish kids in this collection bear the burden of the victims of the pogroms in Europe, even if their grandparents (like mine) got out before the rise of Nazism and the end of free immigration into the US made escape impossible.

This is a collection that, taken together, paints the most complete picture of Orthodox Jewish life that I have ever read. Its themes of identity, rebellion, and dignity will connect to all readers, for "you know the heart of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Englander will touch you in your own personal Egypt. (less)

1 like · like · see review

Aug 28, 2012 Pamela rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nathan Englander is a powerful author. He’s only come out with four books (2 short story collections, one novel and a beautiful new translation of the Haggadah) in the past 12 years, but his writing is engaging, thought-provoking and heartfelt. I have read all his books now, and this latest collection of short stories left me reeling. His stories are varied, but always with Jewish themes. He writes of people in crisis, struggling to find clarity in their lives, relationships that are realistical...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 01, 2012 Arthur rated it 5 of 5 stars

I won't try to summarize these eight stories, but I was so haunted by them that I didn't read another book for about a month. I think that the best stories were the first, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and the last one, Fruit Trees for Young Widows.

Fruit Trees is a meditation, told through powerful histories, on how to respond to evil: turn the other cheek or exact revenge. Anne Frank is about how post-holocaust Jews respond to the larger world, assimilate or become religious...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 20, 2012 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pretty damn good. Beats the pants off that other guy who rooked the same Raymond Carver collection for his title (the insufferably bland Hurakami Haruki, in What We Talk about When We Talk about Running, in which there is no "we," only "I"). No actual Anne Frank included, but the un-sentimental take on often sentimantalized stories is full on. I think that is what this collection is about. Englander seems to be something of a golden boy of the short story these days. I was surprised to see an ac...more

like · see review

Jul 11, 2012 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars

There's a piece in the middle of this book, where Englander talks about/to his ex-girlfriend, that's my favorite part of the whole collection. Englander is like a precocious child chanting his ma nishtana in flawless Mandarin as his grumpy grandpa beams and the rest of us watch in intimidated awe. But this part, my favorite part, where he declares his love for this woman he calls "Bean", a little bit of Englander comes through the mile thick veneer of polish the rest of the stories are slathered...more

1 like · like · see review

May 19, 2012 John Luiz rated it 5 of 5 stars

There’s a blurb on the back of this book from the great Richard Russo that really captures what makes this collection so special: “Nathan Englander is one of the rare writers, who like Faulkner, manages to make his seemingly obsessive, insular concerns all the more universal for their specificity.” Englander’s characters are all Jewish, struggling with antisemitism, memories of the Holocaust and the pull between religion and the secular world. As someone raised Catholic, I may not get all the He...more There’s a blurb on the back of this book from the great Richard Russo that really captures what makes this collection so special: “Nathan Englander is one of the rare writers, who like Faulkner, manages to make his seemingly obsessive, insular concerns all the more universal for their specificity.” Englander’s characters are all Jewish, struggling with antisemitism, memories of the Holocaust and the pull between religion and the secular world. As someone raised Catholic, I may not get all the Hebrew and Yiddish words that pepper some of these stories, but I found every one of the stories riveting. Englander is one of those amazing writers that you just sit back comfortably to read, knowing that with every turned page he’s going to delight and amaze you. The other startling things about this collection is the range – he takes you from the silly revenge fantasies of a pack of teenage boys to the gripping reality of a violent, soul-deadened man whose ability to empathize was killed off by the horrors he lived through in a concentration camp. I highly recommend this collection to anyone.

The eight stories in the collection are:

1. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank -- 30 pp – An Orthodox couple living in Israel visits another secular couple living in Florida so the two wives, who were childhood friends in Brooklyn, can reunite. The story, told from the secular husband’s perspective, starts off with a very funny take on the man’s annoyance at his Israeli’s counterpart’s constant attempts to prove he and his wife are living a more Jewish life than their American friends. But when the couples play the “Anne Frank game” to determine who they could depend on to save them if they needed to be hidden in a secret place, the Orthodox wife comes to a startling realization about her husband.

2. Sister Hills – 39 pp – A great story about two women from families who founded a small Jewish settlement near the Palestinian border that grew to a bustling city. One woman loses her husband and three sons to various wars and accidents, and when she is left without family, she expects her neighbor to honor a contract they made when the other woman’s daughter was an infant and feverish. Hoping she could trick the angel of death, the other woman “sold” her daughter to her neighbor, for a minimal amount and then continued to raise her, never thinking the other woman would ever really consider the daughter hers.

3. How We Avenged the Blums -- 21 pp – A very funny tale about a pack of boys plotting their revenge against a bully who likes to pick on Jewish kids. Part of their plan includes getting very unorthodox martial arts training from a Russian refusenik who works as a janitor at their school. This story was in the 2006 Best American Short Stories collection.

4. Peep Show -- 15 pp – Another funny, but this time surreal, story about a young, married lawyer who steps into a Times Square peep show, but gets very excited by one of the girls who works there. When he deposits more coins in the machine, to open his window and view her again, the stage has been taken over the rabbis, now naked, who taught him as a boy and want to know why he has abandoned his religion.

5. “Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother’s Side” - 21 pp – A story written in short numbered sections about a writer with a Bosnian girlfriend who worries that he doesn’t have as interesting a family life as she does – and therefore may not have enough material to create interesting fiction. When he starts to piece together his family history, he discovers there are more interesting stories than he realized – all the while mourning the loss of his girlfriend after she leaves him.

6. Camp Sundown – 25 pp – One of my favorite stories in the collection. Starts off as a very funny tale about the frustrations of a counselor at a Jewish camp for the elderly, but takes a movingly darker turn when some of the older folks plot revenge against a fellow camper they are convinced was a guard at a concentration camp they managed to survive.

7. The Reader -- 18 pp – A writer was once the toast of the town, but 12 years elapsed before he published his next book, and now he’s forgotten. He goes on a book tour and faces empty seats at bookstores for his readings – except for one loyal fan who shows up at every reading, in cities across the country, forcing the author to put on the standard show, even though there’s no one else in the audience. The slightly surreal piece becomes a great contemplation of the relationship between writers and their readers.

8. Free Fruit for Young Widows – 17 pp – Englander saves the hardest hitting story for last. The story begins with a description about a heartless Israeli soldier who kills four spies in the Israeli army and then savagely beats the man who questions why he did it, when he could have just as easily taken them as prisoners. Years later, the victim of that beating treats that man to fruit from his stand whenever he encounters his former adversary, who has become a professor. The fruit seller’s son, knowing the story, wonders how his father could be so kind to a man who was so brutal to him, but then he learns about the soul-deadening atrocities the man experienced in a concentration camp, and the further heartlessness he experienced after the war when he tried to reunite with the non-Jewish family who worked the farm his family owned before they were shipped off to the camps. A grabs-you-by-the-throat powerful story that selected for the 2011 Best American Short Stories collection.
(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 27, 2012 Rachelle Urist rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Ann Frank is a collection of short stories as clever, colorful and penetrating as those he told in his breakout work, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. The title story of his new collection includes the “game” that the story’s indelibly Jewish protagonists have played since childhood. The game has the same name as the story. It is a psychological twister all too familiar to those of us raised in the wake of the holocaust. Would you hide...more Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Ann Frank is a collection of short stories as clever, colorful and penetrating as those he told in his breakout work, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. The title story of his new collection includes the “game” that the story’s indelibly Jewish protagonists have played since childhood. The game has the same name as the story. It is a psychological twister all too familiar to those of us raised in the wake of the holocaust. Would you hide me today if they came for me? Would you risk your life to save mine? Would you have been as noble as a righteous gentile?

It is chilling to hear Englander call this a “game.” In my experience, it was a sequential set of riddles that was compelling, but never fun. It allowed players to cross boundaries, to imagine themselves survivors, to expiate their sin of survival by reliving what they never experienced. It usurped the humility and gratitude of “There by the grace of God go I.” As a reader, I was shocked to discover this “game” in Englander’s book. I never realized that this obsession remains so real for so many Jews of the second and third generations. The holocaust still haunts our collective psyche, and this compulsion to test others – and oneself - is evident in a number of today’s prominent writers. It appears in Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy, whose protagonist plays this game willy-nilly, with dire consequences. Like Englander, Auslander conjures Ann Frank. Like Auslander, Englander names a character Mr. Kugel. (He spells it “Kigel.”)

Both Englander and Auslander were raised in strict, orthodox households in closed communities in New York. Both became secular. But Englander, who remains loyal to Jewish tradition, creates Jewish characters who are sympathetic despite their observance. Two of the four protagonists in his new book’s title story are Hassidim by choice, raised on pot and beer, and transformed into prolific parents who have made Aliya. Their visit back to the States includes a stay with their old friends. They struggle to find common ground. Alcohol helps. When the riddle’s specter intrudes, they discover more about themselves than they wanted to know.

Most of Englander’s stories are steeped in Jewish life, reminding me of a poignant observation made of the great Yiddish writers of the turn of the last century. Though they were shtetl Jews who had left the fold, they filled their stories with Yiddishkeit, which gave the stories their charm and color, and gave their authors new life. A dose of nostalgia cures a host of ills. Englander’s stories are often funny, but they are never far from the existential Jewish conundrums: to live or not to live within rabbinic ordinance? Never forget! – but do we forgive?

Comedy and tragedy are two heads of a coin, and Englander keeps both perspectives in view. In “Camp Sundown,” an elderhostel group of holocaust survivors evokes laughter with the spot-on mimicry of Jews speaking English with a Yiddish cadence. “I want I should talk to Rabbi Himmelman. … Always he takes care.” Or they confuse English with Yiddish words:

—“Fondle.” Is that Yiddish?
—No! Everything sounds Yiddish to you. Far-fetched, far-flung …
—Farflung is Yiddish.

These campers have a collective memory sharpened by age; they never forget a face, particularly a face from the Camps. Or do they? Can their conviction be a sign of fear? Englander keeps our doubts alive. Readers who have dealt with aging parents know that “sundowning” means loss of faculties as the sun goes down. As seniors watch their visitors leave, and as the lights are dimmed, so is lucid thought. And “camp” has its own associations. I just learned of woman who, as a child, immersed herself in holocaust literature. When she learned, as a child, that her parents had signed her up for summer camp, she was horrified, certain they were sending her to Birkenau. The holocaust survivors consigned to summer camp in this story, cannot escape the Camps of yesteryear.

“Sister Hills” is an exquisite story. It satisfies literary and human interest when taken at face value. Scratch the surface, and the story becomes a profound parable for the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is a story of hope, tragedy, sweat and redemption. Two young Zionist families set up home on adjoining hilltops. They share a vision: to establish a city that will be a model of Jewish life in the new state. As their families grow, so does their neighbors’ resentment. The families share each other’s joys and sorrows. Each is the other’s lifeline. Bargains are made, debts incurred. Life turns love to tatters, but their vision remains. In the end, their vision is realized, but the sacrifices are unspeakable.

Englander’s “Peep Show” is an uncanny echo of a piece on pornography that Shalom Auslander just wrote for GQ magazine. Each of these authors unwittingly mirrors the other, with equal and devastating insight. Yeshiva boys with payess, rabbis with black hats and tzitzess, all figure in x-rated scenes stripped of eroticism. The contradictory desires – for sex and Torah, consummation and commendation – are spun together until they are indistinguishable one from the other, and the protagonist, like the drunken Jew on Purim, cannot tell Haman from Mordecai.

“How We Avenged the Blums” is the story of neighborhood bullies who inspire their young Jewish victims to learn self-defense. Zvi and his friends learn martial arts: Japanese Karate, Russian hand-to-hand combat, and Israeli Krav Maga. They learn to punch, kick, stomp, bite, jab. They learn when to walk away and how to stand their ground. But the most valuable lesson remains elusive; having wrought vengeance, they forget to run.

A venerable professor once told me: “if you want to make a work universal, you must make it very specific.” Englander’s work is so specifically Jewish that anyone can identify. Replace the Jewish touches with any other ethnicity, and the story becomes Italian, Croatian, Kenyan, Buddhist, Catholic, and so on. For all his secularism, Englander, like the great Yiddish writer, I.L.Peretz, takes comfort in writing about tradition. It is little wonder that Englander was persuaded by a fellow Jewish wunderkind, Jonathan Safran Foer, to write a new translation for the New American Haggadah. It is hard to imagine Auslander, equally secular but alienated from tradition, doing the same. Auslander, however, still believes in the God he cannot forgive. His characters spend a good deal of time arguing with Him, like the voices in the poems by Jiří Orten, the late, Czech poet whose work was recently featured in Ann Arbor. Orten is being revived through translation. Our collective unconscious, still plagued by the camps, finds redemption through stories. In the beginning, with words alone, God created … the world. In the 21st century, life re-creates itself through fiction.
(less)

like · see review

Apr 17, 2012 Gwendolyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nathan Englander writes about families with insight and great sensitivity. He digs behind the surface dialog to reveal what is hiding beneath. In the title story—“What We Talk about When We Talk about Anne Frank”—a wife asks her husband if he would save her in the Holocaust, if he would risk his own life to hide her in the attic. He says yes, but, in a feat of miraculous writing, we all know the true answer is no. The second story, “Sister Hills,” is a kind of epic allegory covering decades that...more

like · see review

Mar 09, 2012 Vivian Valvano rated it 5 of 5 stars

A brilliant collection from a brilliant talent. Englander is fearless in his utilization of Israel and Jewishness as subject matter. His giftedness with language, his flair with characterization, and his uncanny ability to wrest some biting (and bitter) humor from intensely serious (sometimes tragic) situations are remarkable. And he doesn't fall into the trap of repeating himself in style or narration. The title story will be talked about for years, I've no doubt. Again, good literature so ofte...more

like · see review

Feb 12, 2012 Stuart rated it 4 of 5 stars

Let's be honest. I'm in the tank for Nathan Englander. If he were to copy the phone book word for word and print it as a novel, I'd probably give it four stars. OK, that's an exaggeration, but you get my drift.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'll say What We Talk About isn't as good or compelling as Englander's first two books. In comparison, the stories here are a little too breezy for my taste. But there are magic moments. There are times when I sat on a sentence and stopped to adm...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 05, 2012 jordan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jonathan Englander's “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges” was the sort of lovely irreverent debut that makes one take note of an author and eagerly await his next work. His first novel, “Ministry of Special Cases,” smart and emotionally sharp, pointed to a writer well on the way to finding his own unique voice. With “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” Englander has more than come into his own, he has firmly established himself as Bernard Malamud's worthy heir.

From the the beginnin...more Jonathan Englander's “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges” was the sort of lovely irreverent debut that makes one take note of an author and eagerly await his next work. His first novel, “Ministry of Special Cases,” smart and emotionally sharp, pointed to a writer well on the way to finding his own unique voice. With “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” Englander has more than come into his own, he has firmly established himself as Bernard Malamud's worthy heir.

From the the beginning, Englander has always written in fine sure prose. His sentences are elegant, deceptive in their simplicity. Of course, you can say that about a lot of modern writers. What makes Englander different is the surety of what one might call his moral sense, his ability to realize complex often ambiguous situations, while maintaining a deep regard for the essential goodness of his characters, even those a reader may come to dislike. This isn't a writer who feels the need to grope at profundity, bludgeoning the reader with this or that message – the death of much fine fiction. No, Englander's characters find complexity on their own terms, becoming members of the family, living on in his reader's minds.

A series of topics permeate this collection, several of which Englander has previously explored. The conflicting perspectives between young and old. Anti-Semitism. The way loss scars the soul and, perhaps, never truly heals. While all of eight of these stories are excellent, a few in particular continue to stand out in my mind. The title piece owes less to Carver and more to Joyce and Malamud. Two couples, one secular and the other ultra-orthodox, are brought together by the childhood friendship of the two women. Their discussion turns eventually to the place of the Holocaust in their respective identities and the amount of risk each person is willing to take to maintain their humanity. This story's ending is pure emotional poetry. “Sister Hills” follows the life of a Jewish community on the West Bank, through the perspectives of two women. Englander's story white washes none of the moral complexity inherent in this laden topic, while delivering a satisfying, fully realized tale of loss and desperation. Then there is “Free Fruit for Young Widows,” of which I can say nothing save it is among those special stories that will remain alive in my mind for many years, perhaps for as long as I am alive.

If there is a bookstore in heaven – and I pray that there is – Bernard Malamud is standing in the stacks, tearing through “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.” Can you hear him? He's weeping with joy.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Jan 10, 2013 JDK1962 rated it 3 of 5 stars

Liked it, though not as much as his first collection. Maybe I need to go back and re-read the first volume, but it seemed somehow more universal (at least to me, a Gentile who grew up reading Chaim Potok). Here, the stories seemed to be written exclusively for a Jewish audience, careless of those who may be left behind.

I also found myself puzzled by a number of the stories, where, even after I finished, I wasn't sure of the point he was trying to make. Or whether any point had been made at all (...more

like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Sharon Thomson rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a compilation of 8 short stories about Jews. Each is about a different person, experiencing a different way of life and Nathan Englander tries to pose a philosophical conundrum in each one. What would you do in this situation?

It started off very promisingly with a story sharing the same title as the book. Based in Florida it told the story of two couples originally from the same part of the country and way of life, who had then gone totally separate ways, one couple to Florida, the other...more

3 likes · like · see review

Aug 26, 2012 Ciara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

i read the title story in this collection in "the new yorker" & added the book to my library hold list because i liked it so much. it was witty, dark, thoughtful, entertaining...you know, everything that i really like in a good short story. the rest of the collection is a bit of a mish mash. the title story is arguably the best of the bunch, but the whole book is pretty decent. if i recall correctly, all of the characters are jewish & all of the plotlines have something to do with some e...more

like · see review

Feb 16, 2012 Larry Hoffer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nathan Englander's first short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, brought him to the literary spotlight in the late 1990s. His magical prose, his creative plots, and his wicked sense of humor had me up late into the night to finish the story collection and laughing (sometimes out loud) as I did. A number of years later, Englander's newest collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, captivated me in much the same way. While on the whole this book isn't quite a...more

like · see review

Feb 14, 2013 Luke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Weird, finely crafted short stories about identity, community, religion, history, sexuality, society, etc. Pretty much all of them are elaborately Jewish in context and focus, but this is used really well as an excuse to poke a finger at the human condition in general. Makes me wonder why I don't read more short stories: these are frequently extremely funny but also powerful and moral (I thought of Chekov, Joyce, and Woody Allen). Some fairly complicated allegorical stuff too, and Englander tell...more

like · see review

Dec 22, 2012 Leka added it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebraismo, racconti, america

Quando parliamo di...

Quando parliamo di libri, di libri che leggiamo, che abbiamo letto, che vogliamo/vorremmo leggere, parliamo di noi. Generalmente -e se leggiamo non per moda, se è mai possibile leggere seguendone una o a causa di-.
A questo libro sono arrivata prima per il titolo (e non per il vago riferimento al What we Talk...When We Talk di Carver), poi per l'autore, certamente non per la quarta di copertina né per la fascetta (marrone -o sangue di bue?- non ne avevo mai viste di questo co...more

1 like · like · see review

May 11, 2012 Kressel Housman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, holocaust, jewish, israel, humor, short-stories

If you're like one of the characters in the title story of this collection and you are drawn to Holocaust stories that show the humanity rising within the inhumanity, you won't find it here. There are no dying men passing on their hidden tefillin to the next Jew in the barracks, no Bais Yaakov graduates, burning with typhoid fever, holding each other up through roll call. For that, I recommend Between My Father and the Old Fool and To Vanquish the Dragon. This book is about much more ordinary, m...more

1 like · like · see review

May 19, 2013 Catherine Woodman rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really like the author's 'New American Haggadah', which has some really great stories to read aloud at your Seder while you are going through the usual traditional story. I have not been one for different haggadahs--I do not need the feminist haggadah or the hippie haggadah or the hip haggadah. I wasn't born Jewish so I did not arrive in adulthood with any preconceived ideas about what a Seder should and should not include, but I do think that if you are going to participate in a ceremony that...more I really like the author's 'New American Haggadah', which has some really great stories to read aloud at your Seder while you are going through the usual traditional story. I have not been one for different haggadahs--I do not need the feminist haggadah or the hippie haggadah or the hip haggadah. I wasn't born Jewish so I did not arrive in adulthood with any preconceived ideas about what a Seder should and should not include, but I do think that if you are going to participate in a ceremony that is millenniums old that you really should stick to the historical roots for the most part. For me, the whole point is to be rooted in the past, and then to make that past relevant to the present. He really did a remarkable job at that.

This is a collection of short stories that are really very much centered on being Jewish and all the manifestations of what that might mean. There is the good, the bad, and the ugly, all mixed together. Englander tells it like he sees it--no candy coating and without a chip on his shoulder. The first story (which is the title story) has a 'Who will hide us? Who will be the righteous Gentile for me?' It was a childhood story shared between two firends, but now that they are grown, one of them has 10 children--hiding her family would be a task indeed. Clearly she was not thinking of having to be kept hidden when she was family planning. And it is ironic, because in the United States for the foreseeable future the targeted group for hatred would be more likely to be Muslim. Would I hide or help in that scenario, risking my own family? I quickly realize that the answer is 'It depends". Which is not the answer I wanted to have, but the story (and another book I read recently, 'Hope: A Tragedy') made me realize that there is a lot to consider, and then to marvel at the fact that people did in fact do that during WWII.

Englander has a deft way of making us laugh and enjoy and cry and these short stories are a great example of 21st century Jewish story telling.(less)

like · see review

Jan 13, 2013 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars.

It was only natural for me to think about Etgar Keret's work when I read these stories, as Englander was a translator for Suddenly... I'm a full on member of the Keret fangirl club, so it was tough going for me for awhile, which is quite silly, when you think about it. Although both writers deal with the Jewish experience, Englander's work (even the story set in Israel) is quite obviously American-- both in content and form.

The real knock out, as expected, is the titular story, but a...more

like · see review

May 13, 2012 Marian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mainstream-fiction

I finished this book and marveled. Looking back at the table of contents, it’s difficult to pick my favorite story. Should it be the first and title story -- “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”? The story is an example of the dictum that they more particular a story is, the more universal it becomes. The story begins with two couples long separated becoming reacquainted. It comes to a close as they confront each other with a childhood “game”. If there was another holocaust, would...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Review for One Book One Jewish Community	1	2	Feb 14, 2013 07:45am
Camp Sundown	4	29	Feb 14, 2013 07:35am

combine
Other Editions (17)

More editions...

Genres

Literature > Jewish

19 users

Literary Fiction

10 users

World War II > Holocaust

8 users

Adult Fiction

7 users

Short Stories > Short Story Collection

7 users

Short Stories

6 users

Literature > American

6 users

Religion > Judaism

5 users

Cultural > Israel

5 users

Judaism > Judaica

5 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Nathan Englander

Nathan Englander is a Jewish-American author born in Long Island, NY in 1970. He wrote the short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1999. The volume won widespread critical acclaim, earning Englander the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kauffman Prize, and established him as an important write...more

More about Nathan Englander...

Books by Nathan Englander

The Twenty-seventh Man: A Short Story from For the Relief of Unbearable Urges

The Tumblers: A Short Story from For the Relief of Unbearable Urges

For The Relief of Unbearable Urges: Short Story

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Di cosa parliamo ...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from What We Talk About Whe...

“43. My couch is 92 inches; it’s a deep green three-cushion. It seats hundreds. But that’s not why I got it. I got it because, lying down the long way, in the spooning-in-front-of-a-movie way, in the head-to-toe lying with a pair of lamps burning and a pair of people reading, it fits me and another – it fits her – really well.” — 4 people liked it

“They went off to the Holy Land and went from Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox, which to me sounds like a repackaged detergent–ORTHODOX ULTRA®, now with more deep-healing power.” — 3 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
avg rating	preview: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank Goodreads rating: 3.75 (2470 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12233866-what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-anne-frank?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1333577294l/12233866.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12233866-what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-anne-frank?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander[/url]

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website