Some­times hilar­i­ous, some­times sad, and always com­pelling, the sto­ries in this col­lec­tion explore the many man­i­fes­ta­tions of being Jew­ish in a mod­ern and large­ly sec­u­lar world. Jen­nifer Anne Moses cre­ates char­ac­ters, most­ly Amer­i­can, who are strug­gling with love, rela­tion­ships, faith, tra­di­tion, and most of all fam­i­ly, and the ties that bind.

A pro­fes­sor of Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture buys a lake house in the Adiron­dacks with the aim of enjoy­ing it with her hus­band, dogs, and grown sons, only to dis­cov­er that her new neigh­bor is a sex­ist, dog-hat­ing, and deeply anti­se­mit­ic bul­ly. The edi­tor of a mag­a­zine devot­ed to lost lan­guages resents the pop­u­lar­i­ty of a younger, less sophis­ti­cat­ed nov­el­ist, who hap­pens to have been her stu­dent. A young woman tries to find her way after her fiancé calls off the wed­ding.

With the con­tra­dic­tions, yearn­ings, imper­fec­tions, and long­ing for grace that beset all of us, these char­ac­ters reach their own epipha­nies — with results that are by turns breath­tak­ing and heartbreaking.