Talking About Nathan Englander's New Works

<em>What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank</em> is a powerful, timeless collection of short stories, captured in exquisite prose. Author Nathan Englander's eight new narratives hit the full range of human emotions as they charismatically explore Jewish identity.<br /><br />This remarkable compilation opens with the titular tale that pays homage to both Raymond Carver's famous story <em>What We Talk About When We Talk About Love</em> as well as Anne Frank, the well-known 15-year-old who died in Nazi Germany. In Englander's version, two Jewish couples struggle to make sense of religious and ethnic identity by playing a devastating game in which they decide who might hide them and who might betray them were there to be another Holocaust. It is a powerful allegory that explores the notions of right and wrong, guilt and innocence, and victim and oppressor.<br /><br />Other chronicles look at the history of Israel's settlements on the verge of the Yom Kippur War, revisit the Holocaust, and turn an idyllic summer camp into a possible real-life horror movie. These eight tales shift from absurdist stories to those strongly rooted in reality and range from the West Bank to the United States; most of the stories center around Jewish characters, and all contain an unexpected jolt that throws readers for a loop.<em><br /><br />What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank</em> is Englander's second short story release. His first collection of works, <em>For the Relief of Unbearable Urges</em>, won widespread acclaim and earned Englander the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award. Englander, an alumnus of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, will speak at <strong>Boswell Book Co. </strong>on Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. <p> </p>