BOOK CLUB
The TBS Book Club will be meeting on Sunday, May 19, 10:30 AM at the home of Paul and Thelma Taub, 10 Gatewood Dr. Hauppauge, NY 11788
This month's selection is "Joshua Then and Now" by Mordecai Richler
Joshua Then and Now
by Mordecai Richler
Joshua Shapiro, a well-known Montreal sports columnist and TV commentator, looks back at his life. Never was it "normal"--nor is it now. His father was Reuben, prizefighter and bootlegger and mob hand breaker and marvelous interpreter (to 14-year-old Josh) of Bible stories and the facts of life. His mother was Esther, a.k.a. Esty Blossom, an exotic dancer who gave the boy-guests at Josh's bar mitzvah a thrill they would never forget. The Spanish Civil War (though slightly before his time) is a moral benchmark in the lives of Joshua and his high-school gang. (And once a year the gang, now adults, gets together to be "Jewy" with a vengeance, singing "Safe in the Arms of Jesus" in Yiddish.) And Richler comes closest to a conventional plot with Joshua's position as an outsider in the WASP society of wife Pauline--especially his antipathy to Pauline's old rival Jane and her brother, the ne'er-do-well, tragedy-destined Kevin. But narrative attack is mostly a rarity here. Instead there's a wonderful abundance of rich novel pieces: Josh, with novelist-pal Sidney Murdoch, running a manuscripts-for-sale scam; the humiliations of success that attend Josh's high school buddies in middle-age; life among the artistic left-wing in London of the Fifties.
About the Author
Mordecai Richler
Novelist
Mordecai Richler was born in 1931 and raised in the working-class Jewish neighborhood around St. Urbain Street, attending Sir George Williams College (now a part of Concordia University). As a novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and editor, Richler spent much of his career chronicling, celebrating, and criticizing the Montreal and the Canada of his youth. Whether the settings of his fiction are St. Urbain Street or European capitals, his major characters never forsake the Montreal world that shaped them. His most frequent voice is that of the satirist, rendering an honest account of his times with care and humour.
Richler's many honors include the Giller Prize, two Governor General's Awards, and innumerable other awards for fiction, journalism, and screenwriting.