Book Club 1/28/18: Tell Me How This Ends Well

David Samuel Levenson places his novel "Tell Me How This Ends Well" about a dysfunctional Jewish family in 2022, where American Jews face an increasingly unsafe and anti-Semitic landscape. But as the Jacobson family gathers for Passover in Los Angeles it is clear that their immediate problems are more personal than political. The three adult children, Mo, Edith, and Jacob, in various states of crisis blame their father, Julian, for a lifetime of mistreatment. The siblings have begun to suspect that their father is hastening their mother Roz's demise. Years of resentment boil over as they debate whether to go through with the real reason for their reunion: an ill-considered plot to end their father’s iron rule for good. That is, if they can put their bickering, grudges, festering relationships, and distrust of one another aside long enough to act. Levenson presents a blistering and prescient vision of the near future, turning the exploits of one very funny, very troubled family into a rare and compelling exploration of the state of America, and what it could become.

Join Ileen Spoor for Sunday morning book club review in the HAZAK Library Judaica at 10 a.m. on January 28, 2018.