Shosha by Issac Bashevis Singer - first published 1974- translated from Yiddish by Joseph Singer - 261 Pages

 

Issac Singer (1902-1991-born Poland) won the Nobel Prize in 1986 for the full body of his work. He is best known to the general public as the author of Yentil, the basis for a very popular movie. Singer's, even though he left Poland in 1935 because of the rise of the Nazis, work is very rooted in the culture in which he was raised. He became an American citizen. Singer died and is buried in Florida. . He indicated his biggest influences as a short story writer were Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant

Hitler invaded Poland in September of 1939.  Shosha is set shortly before that happens but all the Jews in Warsaw so disaster coming for them. The fear of Hitler hangs over the community.

As in others of his novels, the first person narrator is a middle age man of Jewish heritage whose life experiences and study of history have made him sceptical of Orthodox theology, he borders on atheist views at times.

The narrator is a playwright, a novelist and essayist who writes in Yiddish and Polish. He makes a living from this. He married to Dora, a dedicated communist who will leave him to make a disastrous Moscow sojourn. He has numerous other relationships with women.

He is hired by a rich American Jew to write a play for his Yiddish actress mistress to star in. He is well paid for this and his relationships with the man and the woman play a very important part in the plot.

Sosha is a learning disable girl, behind also in her physical development. She might be in her midteens. The narrator develops a strange and to me a bit creepy relationship with her and her mother. The girl's father deserted them long ago.

More and more Jews want out of Poland, they have heard Hitler's rants on the radio. The playwright is offered a complicated chance to leave.

I greatly enjoyed the way Singer flashed forward ten years. The narrator works as a writer in NYC and we learn what happened to the other characters 

Mel Ulm