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Good Reviews for Shiva Book

Jonathan Tropper’s ‘This Is Where I Leave You’

by
Sara Ivry
August 13, 2009
(JonathanTropper.com)
(JonathanTropper.com)

In This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper’s new novel, members of a dysfunctional family gather to sit shiva for their atheist father who nevertheless took the kids to synagogue on holidays because, as he told them, “I’ve been wrong before.” It gets good reviews today. Narrated by Judd Foxman, whose wife has recently left him, the story is “bracing and refreshing,” says Donna Freydkin in USA Today; she sees shades of Nick Hornby in the prose. Janet Maslin digs it too, but compares its “wry domestic tone” more to Tom Perrotta (who, incidentally, provided one of the mere 22 blurbs on the book’s dust jacket).Having only read an excerpt, we are left to wonder more about Tropper’s physical likenesses. Anyone else see hints of Tim Roth and Jacob Weisberg?

Sara Ivry is the host of Vox Tablet, Tablet Magazine’s weekly podcast. Follow her on Twitter@saraivry.