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Prayers for the Living
Alan Cheuse
Fig Tree
March 2015
On Sale: March 17, 2015
Featuring: Minnie Bloch
ISBN: 1941493009 EAN: 9781941493007 Paperback (reprint)
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Literature and Fiction
Prayers for the Living is a novel both grandiose in its
vision and loving in its familiarity. Presented in a series
of conversations between grandmother Minnie Bloch and her
companions, Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio commentator
on All Things Considered, unfolds a layered family portrait
of three generations of the Bloch family, whose members are
collapsing under everyday burdens and brutal betrayals. Her
son Manny is a renowned, almost legendary rabbi. Respected
by his congregants and surrounded by family, no one suspects
that he yearns for a life of greater personal glory, but
when an oracular bird delivers what Manny believes to be a
message from his deceased father, he abandons his
congregation in pursuit of a life in business and his entire
life spirals out of control. As Manny’s fortunes rise in the corporate realm, he falls
deeper into an affair with a congregant, a Holocaust
survivor, his wife sinks deeper into alcoholism and
depression and his daughter, traumatized by a sexual scandal
at college, makes Manny the target of a plot to shatter his
newly-found empire. The devoted family matriarch, Minnie,
observes and recounts the tragic downfall of her family,
unable to save them from themselves.
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