Here I Am: A Novel

“Anyway, Grandpa Irv used to do this thing where he’d give Max and me five bucks if we made a speech that convinced him of something. Anytime, anything.

“We’re mishpuchah,” Irv pleaded. “Yes. And if you can’t keep secrets from your family, who can you keep secrets from?”

“Here’s the deal: the world population of Jews falls within the margin of error of the Chinese census, and everyone hates us.”

If it flushed, he fucked it.

“Nothing goes away. Not on its own. You deal with it, or it deals with you.”

As Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, ‘Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.’ We are made worthy, made righteous, by expression.”

Without love, you die. With love, you also die. Not all deaths are equal.

“I’m joking around. It’s an interesting name, that’s all. Not a judgment. You know you were named for a great-great-uncle who perished in Birkenau. With Jews there always has to be some significance attached.” “Some suffering, you mean.” “Gentiles pick names that sound nice. Or they just make them up.” “Billie was named after Billie Holiday.” “So s

Always, even after he’d lost the desire to touch or be touched by her, he abhorred the thought of her touching or being touched by another man. People she’d been with, pleasure she’d given and received, things she’d moaned. He was not an insecure person in other contexts, but his brain was compelled, with the magnetism of someone unable to escape t