Abstract
GERALDINE BROOKS If there's no such thing as Jewish fiction, then what do you call Chaim Potok, Philip Roth, Nathan Englander, Howard Jacobson and the others in an almost endless list of circumcised guys for whom Jewish identity, experience and often a certain insouciant style of Jewish humor are central? I'm thinking of the particular kind of novel where if you removed all the Jewish themes, references and preoccupations, you'd be left with a short story or maybe in some cases just a title page. [...]speaking of biblical: I do not think it is merely tendentious to advance the Bible as the ne plus ultra of Jewish fiction; perhaps, indeed, it is the finest early example of historical fiction, where an author has taken intriguing elements of the historical record and used imaginative literary devices to bring the stories alive. [...]the Fourth Commandment. [...]one of my favorite works of Jewish fiction is George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. Because I don't define Jewish fiction by the author, I think that Jewish authors are free to write any kind of fiction they like.
Interviews by Sarah Breger, Alan Cheuse, Nadine Epstein, Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil and Sala Levin