Following up on his debut novel, Who by Fire, Who by Blood, and his critically acclaimed short story collection, The Ascent of Eli Israel, Jon Papernick returns with eight scathingly tender and darkly humorous stories. From the streets of modern Israel to the barrooms of Brooklyn to a suburban New England synagogue, the protagonists of There Is No Other search for love and acceptance in a world scarred by loss and loneliness.

In “The Madonna of Temple Beth Elohim,” an Iraq war veteran returns from battle to find that his old life has left him behind and that a temporary job working at a synagogue may prove to be his salvation when the Virgin Mary appears on the eve of the Jewish high holidays. In “My Darling Sweetheart Baby,” a working-class drunk waits on his stoop for his disability cheque and the courage to finally proclaim his love to a local prostitute. In the title story “There Is No Other,” a rage-filled Jewish boy, tormented by his African lineage, arrives at a school Purim party dressed as the prophet Mohammed, demanding difficult answers from his hapless teacher.

Magical, erotic, spiritually penetrating and terrifyingly realistic, these provocative stories continue to mark Papernick as a storyteller who passionately writes in the tradition of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth and Nathan Englander. There Is No Other is sure to resonate with readers.