Kaaterskill Falls [Paperback]

In the summer of '76, the Shulmans and the Melishes migrate to Kaaterskill, the tiny town in upstate New York where Orthodox Jews and Yankee year-rounders live side by side from June through August. Elizabeth Shulman, a devout follower of Rav Elijah Kirshner and the mother of five daughters, is restless. She needs a project of her own, outside her family and her cloistered community. Across the street, Andras Melish is drawn to Kaaterskill by his adoring older sisters, bound to him by their loss and wrenching escape from the Holocaust. Both comforted and crippled by his sisters' love, Andras cannot overcome the ambivalence he feels toward his children and his own beautiful wife. At the top of the hill, Rav Kirshner is coming to the end of his life, and he struggles to decide which of his sons should succeed him: the pious but stolid Isaiah, or the brilliant but worldly Jeremy. Behind the scenes, alarmed as his beloved Kaaterskill is overdeveloped by Michael King, the local real estate broker, Judge Miles Taylor keeps an old secret in check, biding his time....Praise for Allegra Goodman:

"The brushstrokes seemingly casual yet sure, always the exact—and unlikely—equivalent of a shadow or reflected gleam."—Anna Shapiro, New YorkNewsday

"An astonishing display of virtuosity."—Los Angeles TimesonTotal Immersion

"Exceptionally well written: funny, wise, keenly observed....One of the most maddening and recognizable families to come along in years...an enchanting book."—Michiko Kakutani inThe New York TimesonThe Family MarkowitzAllegra Goodman's work has appeared inThe New Yorker, Allure, Food and Wine, Vogue, Commentary,andSlate. She is the recipient of a Whiting Award, and theSalon Magazineaward for fiction. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is at work on a second novel.The questions, discussion topics, and author biographló¾