Fic­tion

Lech

  • From the Publisher
September 1, 2021

Worlds col­lide over the course of one fevered sum­mer where the sale of a Sul­li­van Coun­ty prop­er­ty is at stake. Beth Bark­man, recov­er­ing from an abor­tion she has­n’t men­tioned to her hus­band, rents a cab­in upstate for her­self and young son. There she forms an essen­tial friend­ship with her eccen­tric land­lord, Ira Lech­er. Mean­while, Ira’s some­times lover, real estate agent Noreen Mur­phy, becomes drawn into Mur­mur Lake and its dark past. Noreen’s daugh­ter, Paige, a local wait­ress, plots her escape from opi­oids and an abu­sive boyfriend, while in the neigh­bor­ing town a con­flict­ed Hasidic son grap­ples with his own anvil of grief. Unfold­ing against the back­drop of the for­mer Borscht Belt, Lech probes the bib­li­cal ques­tion of Lech, Lecha —How do we go forth in life? How do we inte­grate the haunt of the past into the present? — in a con­tem­po­rary sto­ry of love and loss, what we car­ry and leave behind, and how to forge a path through all that defines us, with the hope of bet­ter under­stand­ing one anoth­er in the process.

Discussion Questions