The Pinch

Like much of his previous work, Stern’s latest is a fabulist Yiddishkeit saga set in the Pinch, a historic Jewish neighborhood in Memphis, Tenn. This time, “the book and the place are one,” as the protagonist, Lenny Sklarew, discovers a tome titled The Pinch: A History, in which he himself is a character. The book’s author, Muni Pinsker—writing from when the Pinch’s past, present, and future collapsed into a single magical day—supposedly foresaw the actions Lenny, the sole future resident of the Pinch. Once Lenny begins to read, chapters alternate between Muni’s chronicle and Lenny’s first-person 1960s reality, the latter of which includes dealing hallucinogenics, working at the aptly named Book Asylum, and chasing after folklorist Rachel Ostrofsky. While Muni’s characters escape from czarist Russia, encounter Yellow Fever and the KKK, and open businesses in America—not to mention swapping human children for goblins, battling Leviathan fish, and siring children with ghosts—Lenny’s generation deals with civil rights and the Vietnam War. The suspense of learning whether the book’s predictions for Lenny’s future come true propels the narrative forward, and Stern’s rich and rampant imagination seeps into every page. The endings (which are doubled because of the alternating structure) are the novel’s strongest point and will provoke thought long after the final page. (June)