There Is No Other

From the streets of modern Israel to the barrooms of Brooklyn to a suburban New England synagogue, the characters in these nine 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.


Genre: Literary Fiction

"Jon Papernick is an utterly original writer... Every story here delivers a knock-out punch that will leave you reeling - and revising your thinking on what life and love really mean." - Dara Horn