The Golem of Brooklyn

The funny, if slight, latest from Mansbach (Go the F**k to Sleep) stretches its premise gossamer thin. Len Bronstein, a Brooklyn Heights art teacher on summer break, sculpts a nine-foot-tall statue of a golem out of clay while stoned. Once the statue comes to life, Len recruits local bodega cashier Miri Apfelbaum, herself a former member of an ultrareligious Jewish sect, to help translate the golem’s Yiddish, though the golem quickly learns English via reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm (“Larry David remind The Golem of Hillel,” the Golem muses). The creature explains his mission to protect the Jewish community, and after Miri shows him clips from the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., the golem insists on attending a similar upcoming gathering in Kentucky. Len and Miri oblige, but as they transport the golem, they begin to fret about the creature’s bloodlust. Mansbach’s writing works best when his characters wrestle with the concept of violence, weighing pros and cons of letting the golem tear through a crowd of racists. Too often, however, the story gets mired in tangents, from the long synopsis of Len’s failed novel to the multipage poem excerpt that nods to Mansbach’s 2009 novel, The End of the Jews. These interludes act as filler, padding the slender narrative and delaying its cathartic conclusion. This is a case where the punch lines outweigh the message. (Sept.)