Michigan NPR commentator Raphael is the author of Little Miss Evil
and other mysteries; he also penned The German Money
and other "second generation" fiction centered on the children of Holocaust survivors; coauthored Coming Out of Shame
and other nonfiction works on being gay and Jewish; and wrote a memoir, Writing a Jewish Life
, also pubbing in January (Reviews, Nov. 28). About half of these 25 stories are new; others appeared in his collection Dancing on Tisha B'Av
. In many of them, the children of Holocaust survivors grapple with their parents' silences and disclosures, caught in the eddies of their losses and expectations. Many of the protagonists are gay, considering their Judaism and their sexuality with measures of passion and reluctance. Raphael's language is searching and expansive, but the awkward dance between Old and New World repeats from story to story; while the facts surrounding the tensions change, the characters take on a studied familiarity. (Jan.)
