Other People's Lives

by Johanna Kaplan

These vibrant short stories are about the lives of Jewish families in New York in the mid-twentieth century. But, in Kaplan's vision, everyday life, with its complexity, disorder, and comic subtleties can never obscure a deeper reality. Her sharp-eyed, quirky children and adults are haunted by history, both individual and collective.

Other People's Lives won the Jewish Book Award, and the Ernest Hemingway-PEN Prize in 1976.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Jewish

216 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2000

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of stories was originally published in 1976 and won the Jewish Book Award that year as well as being nominated for the National Book Award, but it is not an easy read. It has been re-issued through Open Road Media. The title story is especially difficult because the protagonist is so strange and disassociated, that the readers feel distant. Just recently released from a psychiatric institution, she rents a room with the immigrant family of a dying ballet dancer. Her problem (or at least one of them) is that she gets sucked into the lives of others around her so completely that she forgets about her own life. So the story works to make the reader experience being sucked into strangers' lives--a strange and disorienting trip.
Three of the later stories won me over, one about fantasies or dreams experienced by a young girl home sick with the measles, one about a girl at camp being cast as the lead in play about the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto just because she speaks Yiddish, and the last about baby-sitting for a famous poet. They are all whimsical and strange, perhaps even strained, but one can empathize with as well as witness their main characters. Over all, this collection of short stories is both interesting and challenging, if perhaps a bit over-written.

[Penny Schmuecker · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to finish this but like other readers, I also thought the book dragged on and on pointlessly. It wasn't the dialogue so much, but rather the disjointed thoughts with no real story. I finally just had to give up.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Fiction, 1970s)

This is a book that I requested from NetGalley because I was intrigued by the cover and title. I had hoped, I think, to peek in many apartments and many lives.

Instead, the book focused on one woman and her rather odd story.

Of course, that’s only my opinion. Other People’s Lives was the winner of a Jewish Book Award and was a finalist for the 1976 National Book Award.

3 stars

[Luke Sherwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the outs. One point of view dominates the novella and five short stories of Johanna Kaplan’s Other People’s Lives. And most often, this outside-looking-in stance results from a combination of culture and self-imposed exile. This tension plays out with pathos, and often laugh-out-loud humor in this remarkable collection.

The title piece is the novella, and it contains the story of Louise, who is placed in the apartment of a famous dancer’s family. It establishes the collection’s tone and point of view and theme right away, and goes further: it puts the story in the consciousness of a mental patient, Louise, who sometimes can’t trust what she sees and hears. She apparently has hallucinations, and may have petit mal seizures. A healthy portion of the energy of this story comes from Maria, the German wife of the famous dancer, who manically mangles English, to terrific comic effect.

Other stories feature girls in junior high or high school, at camp, or home sick from school, or babysitting. They have in common an intelligent, if a little eccentric, female Jewish protagonist, who sees and approaches the world on her own terms. Often there is a wise-cracking vulnerability to these appealing creatures, and few have any problems speaking up to the frequently addled adults they live with or near.

Other People’s Lives rides a groundswell of endearing, exposed, nervous humanity. Its mouthpieces already have a couple of strikes against them, being Jewish and female (except for one Chinese girl in Vietnam), and they stake out their ground in ways that range from sassy to cranky to plaintive. This is a highly assured collection for a debut piece, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1976, and won the National Jewish Book Award. Reading this collection was a delightful experience and I recommend it highly.

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[Cynthia Archer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I either love or hate short stories. The title attracted me to this collection. Other people's lives can be fascinating and reading about them can be a guilty pleasure, even if you just get snippets in a short story. Sadly, these lives weren't, and I lost interest almost immediately. The author treated each character as if the reader already knew them and gave details that were confusing and off putting. It was like I was looking in on lives that were already in progress and had to try to figure out what had gone on before I started reading. Although this can be done successfully, in this case the fragmented stories were distracting and irritating. Just as abruptly as the stories began, the conclusions of each also seemed to drop me without letting me feel any kind of closure. The author is eloquent, but for me, that wasn't enough to save the collection. I did finish the book, but it was a struggle and a challenge.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this collection. I'm sorry to say that although I often enjoy vintage publications, this one is not one that I will recommend.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a prize winning book, up for the National Book Award. It was a Kindle Daily bargain that I purchased because it was an award winner. I did not "get" it. I'll have to re-read it another time to see if I understand why the notoriety.