Famous Drownings in Literary History: Essays on 21st-Century Jewishness

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Famous Drownings in Literary History: Essays on 21st-Century Jewishness

by Kevin Haworth (Goodreads Author)

4.4 of 5 stars 4.40 · rating details · 10 ratings · 8 reviews

What exactly does it mean to be young, Jewish and creative in 21st-century America? How do you reconcile a quiet life in the Midwest with a parallel life in Israel? And how do you fit in a five-year-old son with an interest in frilly dresses? Ohio professor and celebrated cultural essayist Kevin Haworth answers these questions and more in this, his debut full-length essay...more

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Published (first published October 8th 2012)

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Apr 01, 2013 Lori added it

Shelves: nonfiction, books-im-working-with

I work for the publisher, so I won't rate or review this book, but if you're into non-fiction essays that focus on the darker, more contemplative side of human nature, with a specific focus on modern day Jewishness.. you'll want to add this to your list!

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 13, 2012 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, nonfiction, npr-worthy, hipster, smart-nerdy, personal-favorite, cclap-published, religion

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

APOLOGIA: A "critical" essay deliberately kept completely positive, often to convince others to believe the same way the author does about a subject

Why I Signed 'Famous Drownings in Literary History' -- An Apologia

Like any other small press, CCLaP gets its share of cold submissions; and like any other smal...more (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

APOLOGIA: A "critical" essay deliberately kept completely positive, often to convince others to believe the same way the author does about a subject

Why I Signed 'Famous Drownings in Literary History' -- An Apologia

Like any other small press, CCLaP gets its share of cold submissions; and like any other small press, the majority of them are mediocre to okay, a few are outright terrible, and a tiny little sliver are good enough to sign and publish. We're going to have a lot more of them in 2013, as a recent feature in Poets & Writers magazine has significantly increased our national awareness among unsigned writers, and soon our catalog will not just be dominated by Chicago authors but also ones from New York, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and various other places; but the first cold submission we ever accepted and published was Kevin Haworth's Famous Drownings in Literary History this past October, which came to us by way of Athens, Ohio, because of Kevin's friend David Ebenbach reportedly having a good experience with us in 2011, when publishing a short story in our group book Amsterdamned If You Do: An Anthology About Setting. And it's not just the first cold submission we ever published, but kind of a miracle that a manuscript of this quality was made available to us in the first place; because to be frank, this college professor's collection of essays about being liberal and creative yet traditionally Jewish in the 21st century is something that could've very easily gotten published through any number of academic presses much more prestigious than us, and in fact it's my understanding that Kevin is the subject of some discussion among his academic peers about his decision to go with a "hipster" commercial outfit rather than the traditional academic-press route. (Or at least, I have to imagine that he's the only person in his circle to have a book published with a comics-style illustration on the cover.)

And that's because Kevin's writing is as impeccable as you would expect from a full-time writing academe and a former winner of the Samuel Goldberg Award; analytical yet poetic, with the dry humor of a Sarah Vowell NPR piece but the clipped serious style of Denis Johnson, he weaves together journalistic research and the creatively personal into a kind of addictive hybrid of essay, not traditionally scholarly and not exactly Chuck Klosterman but an engaging, thought-provoking blend of those extremes. And hey, what better subject to tackle these days than the struggle to reconcile a traditional faith with the kind of liberal, creative lifestyle that puts one in touch with a lot of bitter atheists, all while raising a young family as well; especially since it seems that conservatives have claimed a kind of monopoly in the last thirty years on faith and religious belief, and have committed a string of atrocities around the world using logic that a lot of religiously faithful don't believe in at all. Kevin does this in a way that pulls you into the book more and more as you continue, a rare and wonderful thing among a collection of unthemed short pieces like this, and picks subjects that have a strong natural interest of their own: circumcising his son, that son then developing an obsession at the age of five with wearing frilly girls' dresses, the rituals that tie in so closely with Jewish holidays, Israel and Zionism, the black Jews of the African Diaspora, the Catskills in the 1970s, and on and on and on, a cornucopia of funny and serious subjects that you don't have to be Jewish to appreciate, but that helps explain contemporary Jewishness in a way a hundred Wikipedia pages could not.

I knew this was a special manuscript the moment I saw it, and thankfully the external world has backed me up since: it was the winner of a grant from the Ohio Arts Council, has received large write-ups in the Chicago Tribune, NYU's The Revealer and Ohio University's Perspectives, and is currently in the running for the prestigious Grub Street Prize (keep your fingers crossed), along with a multitude of praise all over the blogosphere. It was a privilege to put it out, precisely because I knew it was this good, but also because I like having a chance to support manuscripts like these that can be sometimes tough to land at a commercial place: it's not quite academic enough for a lot of academic presses, not quite pop enough for pop presses, something for a thinking person who also wants to be entertained, and I like to think that CCLaP is particularly good at putting out these kinds of stories, the kind that sit on the borders of so many traditional genres and styles. We'll be sending Kevin out this spring on a virtual book tour, to about twenty other litblogs and the like, so just drop me a line and let me know if you'd like to take part; but in the meantime, I hope you'll get a chance to stop by the book's online headquarters if you never have, to either download a free electronic version or order a handmade paper edition. (less)

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Nov 24, 2012 Julie Levin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Kevin Haworth is one of those writers who can make prose, even non-fiction, sound like poetry. I didn't know his work before I read this short volume of essays, but I will be reading his writing again. His interweave of the political with the personal, the spiritual with the mundane, is moving, enlightening and thoroughly pleasurable.

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Nov 14, 2012 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wherein where we are faced with raising, protecting, and controlling children we don't quite understand in a world we don't quite understand, even when we have a culture to draw on, literature, or our ability to save people from drowning.

More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2012/11...

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Dec 18, 2012 Eleanor Stanford rated it 5 of 5 stars

Smart, moving essays about lifeguarding in the Catskills, a son's bris, carrying a yarmulke in one's pocket (just in case), and other apt, thought-inspiring reflections on 21st century Jewish American life.

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Oct 08, 2012 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, nonfiction, religion, smart-nerdy, politics, personal-favorite, middle-east, hipster

I was the editor and publisher of this book! Essay on the process coming soon!

2 likes · like · see review

Oct 09, 2012 Lori marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: arc-reviewers-copy, own-not-yet-read, downloads

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Jan 12, 2013 Joey Pizzolato rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: everything-chicago, reviewed

An absolutely stellar collection of essays--I reviewed it for Curbside Splendor Publishing. If you'd like to check it out you can follow the link below. If not, just read the book and see for yourself.

Thanks for the interest!

Full review: http://www.curbsidesplendor.com/curbs...

1 like · like · see review

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Shelves: read-or-weep

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About Kevin Haworth

Kevin Haworth's first novel, The Discontinuity of Small Things, was awarded the Samuel Goldberg Prize for best Jewish fiction by a writer under 40. It was also recognized as runner-up for the 2006 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A two-time resident of the Vermont Studio Center, he is also a winner of the David Dornstein Prize for Young Jewish Writers and the Permafrost Fiction Prize. His fiction and...more

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“In the Catskills, nostalgia runs backwards. The upwardly mobile Jewish masses of the 1950s and 1960s have been replaced by the Jews of 19th century Poland.” — 1 person liked it

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Famous Drownings in Literary History: Essays on 21st-Century Jewishness

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