#kaddish.com

[nprbooks]

Author Nathan Englander was raised in an observant Jewish family and now considers himself secular. His stories and novels are full of the kinds of details about Judaism that you can only capture if you've known a community from the inside. His latest book is called kaddish.com, and it's a satire about what separates the doubters from the devout -- check out his very entertaining conversation with Ari Shapiro here.

-- Petra

[lesserjoke]

Book #115 of 2025:

Kaddish.com by Nathan Englander

Mixed feelings on this one, though I appreciate the #ownvoices Jewish elements. I think a condensed version of the plot could have been effective as a short story, but it’s too thin for a full-fledged novel, with the transition between the protagonist in the past and the present seeming in particular need of additional development. I also could have done without all the psychosexual hangups, which occupy a surprisingly large portion of the text.

The premise: back in 1999 when his father dies, our Jewish-American hero is not feeling especially religious. To placate his more observant relatives, the 30-year-old agrees to fulfill his duty as the eldest son anyway and say the ritual Kaddish prayer eight times a day for the next eleven months. Unwilling to do that actual work himself, however, he seizes upon a Talmudic loophole that suggests someone else can be recruited to do the job instead. And it turns out the budding Internet has exactly that sort of person, provided for hire over the titular website.

Two decades later, having since embraced the faith and become a rabbi, he regrets his earlier dereliction, which he likens to Esau trading away his birthright in the Book of Genesis. Spiraling both personally and professionally, he reasons that if he can track down that stranger, he can symbolically trade to regain his lost status. And eventually he does just that, although it’s clear to the reader long beforehand that the service is likely a sham, taking in money from gullible customers while conducting no real praying in return.

The basic structure here could have worked, like I said above. But there’s not enough meat on the parts that matter — the repercussions of this man abandoning his job and family to pursue his quixotic effort, the philosophical question of whether such a deception even hurts anyone, etc. — and the somewhat-open conclusion fails to really satisfy as a result. I wasn’t terribly impressed as I went along, and then felt let down further in the end.

★★☆☆☆

Like this review? –Throw me a quick one-time donation here! https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke –Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next! https://patreon.com/lesserjoke –Follow along on Goodreads here! https://www.goodreads.com/lesserjoke –Or click here to browse through all my reviews! https://lesserjoke.home.blog

[ad-ya]

[ad-ya]

[ad-ya]

[ad-ya]

[ad-ya]

[ad-ya]