An Hour in Paradise

Stories

Reading Group Guide

The Author on Her Work | Discussion Questions

The Author on Her Work

The stories in An Hour in Paradise were written mostly over a five-year period, from 1997 to 2002. However, several of the stories reach back almost twenty years to my experience in Jerusalem where I lived for three years in my late twenties and where I became intrigued by—and partly immersed in—the varieties of Jewish religious life. Still, when I began to write fiction I didn't write immediately about Israel or Jewish life; that took another six or seven years. Looking back, I think that I first needed to master more of the craft of fiction writing, and do my apprenticeship, so to speak, before I could delve into material that was so close to the bone.

One of the most joyful aspects of writing these stories is that they are not autobiographical. I was totally free to invent. This is what I find so exhilarating about writing fiction: uncovering and inhabiting another reality that seems as real as my own. This is the fun part, even with all the hard work, and even when a story is dark and disturbing. I love imagining other people's lives. I used to do it all the time in restaurants or on the commuter train, but then you're limited to whoever is at the table next to you or in the seat across the aisle. In fiction, you can conjure anyone, anywhere. My impulse is not to judge or even to understand (which I don't think one can ever really do in life); it's to illuminate. In real life, we're seldom privy to the truth about anyone, even those we're closest to. That's what fiction can give us: a look inside, so that we feel less lonely, less isolated, and sometimes more compassionate.

Discussion Questions

1. Several of the stories suggest possible visitations by characters who fall outside the bounds of ordinary human experience, such as the mysterious conjoined twins in "The Tenth," and the sister Miri in "The Lament of the Rabbi's Daughters." Do you think such visitations definitely occurred, or are the stories open-ended on this question? How do the meanings of these stories change depending on how the reader answers the preceding question?
2. In "How to Comfort the Sick and Dying," why does Reuven go back to the hospital at the very end? What has happened to him while he was sitting by the expressway? Who might the drunks be, especially the one who hovers closest to him? And what is the role of the italicized sayings sprinkled throughout the story—what voice or wisdom do those sayings reflect?
3. Several of the stories turn on relationships between strangers or cordial (or not so cordial) neighbors: Reuven and Mr. Ash in "How to Comfort the Sick and Dying," Boaz Deri and Rachel Locke in "The Seventh Year," Koenigsman and Mezivosky in "Mezivosky." Consider how each of these relationships works in each story. Who is helping whom, and how? What might these stories be suggesting about the transformative power of such relationships?
4. Mothers and their grown daughters appear in "Lucky in Love" and "Henny's Wedding." How are those mother-daughter relationships portrayed in each of the stories? A mother and adult son are portrayed in "Accounting," filtered through the lens of the father. How do the mothers in each of these stories come across? How do they compare to the fathers in these stories?
5. Why is the last story titled "a modern fable" ("The Diviners of Desire: A Modern Fable")? How is it like a fable versus a straight fiction? What are the elements that make it more fable-like?
6. Speaking of story titles, what are the multiple layers of meaning of the title "Accounting" in that story? What about "Lucky in Love"—were those characters lucky or not?
7. Several of the stories feature storytelling within the story: the bizarre tales Reuven makes up in "How to Comfort the Sick and Dying," and Blanche's stories in "Lucky in Love" about what Solly did on the day each of Blanche's children were born. How do these bits of storytelling function in each piece of fiction—what do they accomplish in terms of illuminating character, mood, tone? What do they suggest about the role of storytelling in relationships?
8. At the end of "Seekers in the Holy Land," the main character, Neal, is left standing, head bowed, holding a wooden bowl for donations. What has happened to him, and why? Consider how the longing to experience the divine runs through other stories in the collection ("The Tenth," "Lament of the Rabbi's Daughters"). What are all these stories suggesting about this longing—and about the possibility of it being satisfied?
9. In "The Seventh Year," Boaz tells his friend Chaim not to be so hard on himself for leaving the early State of Israel and adds, "Believe me, Chaim, you didn't miss anything by leaving." Elsewhere, Boaz recalls his adult son, upon spending a year in Australia, observing that with a computer, a modem, and a phone, he could be living anywhere. Later Boaz recalls Chaim saying in 1959 that "it was a delusion to believe in belonging. What did anyone think they belonged to—a particular piece of ground, call it a homestead, a village, a country. Hadn't they learned that lesson already?" What might this story be saying about the idea of attachment to any one place, especially for Jews after the Holocaust? What do the Biblical passages in the story suggest about the meaning of belonging? Does Boaz "belong" anywhere in particular? Do any of us?
10. Several of the stories make some critical—some might even say harsh—observations about the state of American Jewish life ("Seekers in the Holy Land," "The Lament of the Rabbi's Daughters," "The Seventh Year," "The Diviners of Desire: A Modern Fable"). What are these observations? Do you agree with them?
11. Minor, or secondary, characters often carry more heft than their simple weight in stories. Consider the roles these minor characters play in their stories—what they add to each story in terms of the meaning or themes: Ellie in "The Tenth"; Noah in "The Seventh Year"; Dov, the tour guide, in "Seekers in the Holy Land"; Yossi in "The Diviners of Desire: A Modern Fable"; the dog in "Mezivosky."
12. In "Accounting," why does Solomon, at the end, "hope that Eliot returned to work in the morning"? What are Solomon's choices at that point? Likewise, at the end of "Henny's Wedding," why does Shirley, knowing her choices, cast her lot with Jack? What do you think of their choices? Do you agree with the characters' assessments that it's too late for them to make different choices?
13. Why do you think Rachel Locke became pregnant by the end of "The Seventh Year"? Was it chance, or had something shifted for her or within the story to allow that to happen? Had Boaz changed in the course of the story? How?
14. One critic described reading these stories as akin to "watching a procession of modern-day Jewish pilgrims in a medieval tapestry: seekers captured in the act of seeking." How does that description fit these stories? What are the people in these tales seeking?
15. The book's title comes from the Yiddish proverb, "Even an hour in paradise is worthwhile." How do you interpret the title in light of these stories?