cover image Goodbye Evil Eye

Goodbye Evil Eye

Gloria Devidas Kirchheimer. Holmes & Meier Publishers, $21.95 (176pp) ISBN 978-0-8419-1404-9

""In our house, the direct statement was seldom used as a vehicle for communication,"" Kirchheimer (We Were So Beloved) recalls in the preface to her collection of stories about a New York Sephardic family. ""Innuendo was the order of the day."" The handling of life's tribulations without talking about them challenges an immigrant couple, their Americanized children, relatives, neighbors and friends in 11 personal fictions about love, frustration, identity and tradition. The peculiar Sephardic blend of Jewish philosophy, European culture, and mysticism that survived from medieval Spain through the Ottoman Empire to the present day informs the communitiy's everyday life, as does the immigrant work ethic. In the title story, when a young man who wishes to carry on the work of the doctor-philosopher Maimonides seeks his grandfather's grave, he learns more about his own history than he anticipated. In ""A Case of Dementia,"" a mother in the throes of rebellion calls upon her daughter to protect her from the evil eye through an old, oddly powerful ceremony. Kirchheimer depicts male egotism, family secrets, folk songs and meals in vivid detail, as in ""Feast of Lights,"" the simple, affecting story of a Hanukkah dinner uniting three generations in a ritual of food, gifts and ruffled feelings. Demonstrating an intuitive understanding of the psychocultural traits of Jewish culture, she imbues even the most frustrating moments with tenderness. She does not probe religious or philosophical depths, focusing instead on small remnants of a long, rich heritage, in stories invested with the personal honesty and emotions only one's family can inspire. (July)