Local Authors

Item Description

Evanston resident Joseph Epstein has signed and donated this highly acclaimed hardcover to benefit the EPL fundraiser!

He is one of many current and former Evanston authors who feel strongly about the need to preserve our libraries, and are doing their part in helping to make that happen.   He states,

"The Evanston branch libraries have been important to the lives of neighborhood children and retired people and people who work at home. Evanston is known as a civilized community  with a high degree of cultural opportunities - perhaps the most civilized in the Chicago metropolitan area - and such a community does not, ever, close down libraries."  -- Joseph Epstein

Reviews

Switching gears after his nonfiction hit, Snobbery, Epstein has compiled a collection of short stories as thoughtful and arresting as its title (from a poem by Karl Shapiro). Whether they are in a nursing home, recovering from the loss of a spouse of 50 years, or looking back at marriages, shortcomings or missed opportunities, Epstein's characters are quirky, witty, resentful, fearful and cautiously hopeful as they face their future, or whatever they have left of it, in a world in which all the rules have changed. What distinguishes them as Jews in this universal situation is a certain wry outlook, a vernacular turn of phrase that carries the tang of its Yiddish origin, and a tendency to philosophize about the deeper questions of existence. "Coming In with Their Hands Up" is a touching tale of a bloodthirsty divorce lawyer who encounters heartbreak in his own marriage. In "Postcards," Seymour Hefferman, an acidulous and malicious failed poet, anonymously castigates cultural eminences when they offend his sensibilities, signing a Jewish name instead of his own; he finally gets his comeuppance. The eponymous Felix Emeritus, a cautious Buchenwald survivor who has never asked much of life, meets in an old-age home a bitter man who can't surmount his dark view of human nature. Mostly settled in Chicago, these 17 characters are no heroes, only reflective personalities-little people with big opinions-who have made their share of sacrifices. Like his emotionally candid, low-key protagonists, Epstein is intrinsically honest. Gratifying and genuine, this collection examines all sorts of responses to the encroachment of old age on human dignity. – Publishers Weekly

Whether he's writing piquant criticism such as Snobbery: The American Version [BKL Jl 02] or fiction, Epstein brings zest and clarity to his ardent inquiry into how we attempt to make sense of life and peace with death. His fictional turf is Jewish Chicago, a vibrant domain in dramatic transition in this robust and involving short story collection. Epstein's narrators tend to be tough, hardworking, and solitary men who have survived poverty, the Holocaust, ruthless competition, and impossible domestic situations only to confront old age and a jittery new world that to their pragmatic eyes seems neurotic, flimsy, indulgent, and vacuous. Yet Epstein's heroes--guys like salesman Moe Bernstein, dry-cleaner mogul Artie Glick, a bartender, a scamming ex-con, and a few soulful academics--do not despair. They maintain their sense of humor, they take chances, they open their hearts, and they find life sweeter than ever before. As rich in clever banter as in philosophic musings, Epstein's funny and wise stories celebrate independence, the inner life, generosity of spirit, and rolling with the punches. – Booklist

Item Special Note

Biography

JOSEPH EPSTEIN is the author of the best-selling Snobbery and of Friendship, as well as the short story collections The Goldin Boys and Fabulous Small Jews, among other books, and was formerly editor of the American Scholar. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and other magazines.