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A Crown of Feathers: Stories

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A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories is a 1973 book of short stories written by Isaac Bashevis Singer. It shared the 1974 National Book Award for Fiction with Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

The twenty-four (24) stories in this collection were translated from Yiddish (Singer's language of choice for writing) by himself, Laurie Colwin, and others.

The stories appear in the following sequence:
"A Crown of Feathers"-"A Day in Coney Island"-"The Captive"-"The Blizzard"-"Property"-"The Lantuch"-"The Son from America"-"The Briefcase"-"The Cabalist of East Broadway"-"The Bishop's Robe"-"A Quotation from Klopstock"-"The Magazine"-"Lost"-"The Prodigy"-"The Third One"-"The Recluse"-"A Dance and a Hop"-"Her Son"-"The Egotist"-"The Beard"-"The Dance"-"On a Wagon"-"Neighbors"-"Grandfather and Grandson"
___
Alfred Kazin noted in his 1974 review of the book in The New York Times that: "Isaac Bashevis Singer is an extraordinary writer. And this new collection of stories, like so much that he writes, represents the most delicate imaginative splendor, wit, mischief and, not least, the now unbelievable life that Jews once lived in Poland."

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

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About the author

Isaac Bashevis Singer

440 books962 followers
Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish American author of Jewish descent, noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.
His memoir, "A Day Of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw", won the U.S. National Book Award in Children's Literature in 1970, while his collection "A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories" won the U.S. National Book Award in Fiction in 1974.

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5 stars
259 (42%)
4 stars
223 (36%)
3 stars
95 (15%)
2 stars
23 (3%)
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14 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
Profile Image for Manny.
Author 34 books14.8k followers
March 7, 2015
It's been nearly 30 years since I last looked at this excellent collection of short stories, but some of them still visit my thoughts regularly. My favorite is the guy who seduces his neighbor by turning up in her bedroom one night and saying that he's a demon from Hell. It's pitch black, and she's not sure if she's dreaming or awake. She gives him everything he wants, and he tells her fantastic stories of the Infernal Realms. The next night, he comes back again: same deal. This goes on for years.

One night, he arrives as usual, but he's feverish and can't perform. The next night, he fails to show up. The day after, she hears that the man upstairs has suddenly died; they're taking him off to be buried. A sudden hypothesis crosses her mind, but she can't quite believe it.

I think this kind of thing happens all the time.
________________________________

And if you imagined I was kidding...
Profile Image for Jigar Brahmbhatt.
297 reviews144 followers
December 17, 2014
Some of the finest short stories I have ever read, and I have not read many. Isaac Singer has an uncanny ability to merge realism with Jewish folklore and mythology. I loved the way his focus always stays on people, mostly the immigrant community, but the background is not only its American setting but a vast Jewish experience. The tales vary greatly in theme and content where the ancient always hover over the modern. In my mind, this book and Will Eisner's awesome graphic novel "A Contract with God" are soul cousins, maybe because in both of them we clearly see where they are coming from.

I have come to know, though I am not sure about its validity, that in Judaism storytelling and spirituality often go hand in hand. Singer, with his sheer brilliance in storytelling, held my attention till the very last page, until I was saddened by the fact that there were no more stories to go on. He convinced me yet again that a good story, told with great lucidity, devoid of unnecessary complications, can have great power over the reader. That is how stories have survived and affected us over the centuries - by being lucid.

Like a master, he made me feel that I wasn't reading these tales, but was being narrated to, sitting cozily near a warm hearth, while I happily listened to him, like an awed child does to his grandfather's enthusiastic narration.

What was this treasure of a book doing in a second hand book shop in Mylapore?
1,119 reviews125 followers
November 8, 2017
magical stories from a lost era

Polish Jewry under Russian rule, the Jews in post-1918 Poland, the exiled survivors of the Holocaust in New York---all these are times and people of the past. Nothing of them really survives. Yiddish is but a pale shadow of its former self. So even the words here are like pink clouds of last week's sunset. How they struggled ! How they loved, fought, schemed and sacrificed--the writers, the revolutionaries, the holy men, the pretenders, the warped geniuses, the dispossessed. Unless we have a writer of the stature of Isaac Bashevis Singer, all this is gone forever. We are left with dusty tomes, the photos of Roman Vishniac, and some Holocaust museums with their tragic rooms telling of mass murder. But if I want to know what the world of my ancestors--your neighbors' ancestors--was like, you have to read Singer; this book or any other. Devils and nasty spirits haunt the pages, along with believers in occult rituals and spirit mediums. A woman under a curse loses everything and finally disappears herself. The ferment that shook Jewish life in Poland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries lives here---new ideas of democracy, Communism, equality of the sexes, secular life shook traditional Judaism, still sunk in prayers, study of the Talmud, and the eternal wait for the Messiah. Sons full of new energy return to the village from America, full of plans, only to find that somnolence rules supreme. Tradition is happy. [But doomed.] In America, the surviving writers and would-be writers hang out in cafes and delicatessens, talking away their days over tea and rice pudding. It's a far cry from Hemingway ! Some lecture, write, publish--others only argue and go home to cramped apartments in decaying Manhattan buildings. Lovers lose their chances, have their older mistresses die in their beds, they fade, come to life, and fade again. There is no explaining why people do things---everything is contradictory when it comes to behavior. The ironies of Fate rule supreme. We read of endless permutations of the human condition. In A CROWN OF FEATHERS we not only find Jewish life and tradition, but we find all humanity represented, just as in the work of the world's finest writers. That is appropriate, because Singer was one of the world's finest writers. If you haven't read him, you can start with this book. None of the stories are bad, but some are breathtakingly, amazingly good.
Profile Image for Greg.
1,982 reviews18 followers
January 13, 2018
I liked the opening stories so much I decided to sparse out the rest of the collection and just read one a day. However, toward the middle of this collection, I realized that many felt similar. A character is met in a cafeteria and that character tells his story. Some of these stories fell into the "magic realism" territory which is a genre that's becoming one of my favorites. And because of my lack of understanding the finer points of the jewish religion, there were comments and storylines I just didn't understand. I'll own up to that and say that's one reason I didn't enjoy some stories as much as others. In summary, I found a few 5 star stories (most of them at the beginning of the collection), many 3 star stories that I enjoyed but felt they were too similar, and a few stories that simply baffled me, thus my 3 star rating. If you're a student of Jewish history and religion, you might find this to be a more satisfying collection than I did. But if you're like me, and just looking for a nice set of short stories (I always like to have a collection in progress) this works just fine. I liked it!
Profile Image for David Bennatan.
43 reviews6 followers
January 5, 2022
This was one of the best collection of stories that I've read by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I especially liked the title story "A Crown of Feathers" which was very emotionally moving. Rather than evaluate any of the stories I would like to give my impression of what lays behind the writing of all the stories and Singer's work in general. I would also like to give my opinion why Singer deals with the occult and such strange imaginary manifestations of demons and imps.

A wide period of time is covered in the stories but they all occur after the Enlightenment caused an uprooting of the Jewish communities of Poland and Russia. In a relatively short time, and I am speaking of a period of well over a hundred years, both the enlightened modern and the old traditional communities were destroyed by the Nazis. Often Singer refers to everything in ashes.

Singer does not portray the traditional, religious life with much fondness. His heart is in the great Polish cities of Lodz and Warsaw. That was for him the scene of vibrant life. The Torah students are always hunched and sickly, their toil meaningless. I must say that this is not at all a universal view. In some religious circles today those students were heroic in their dedication to Torah. Singer sees the past of European Jewry very darkly.

His view of modern times is also very sad for it is overwhelming that Yiddish culture is dying. Characters in the story that resemble the author himself are getting by with writing and lectures but there is not another successful character among he writers he meets. So many are broken down and on their last legs. This seems only a realistic portrayal. Singer was successful. He won the Nobel prize. But his success was based on translations of his own and people with whom he worked.

Both the destruction of Jewish life in Europe and the demise of Yiddish make for a very dark atmosphere to the stories. I explain the interest in the occult to people's need to communicate with the departed that is their only connection to the past. The interest in demons and imps stems from the darkness of the destruction of a way of life. Rather than celebrate the great efforts of Torah scholars Singer examines the superstitions of a culture that he did not want to be a part of. To him the Enlightenment was everything. The culture of the writers and artists is a fond memory. The villagers and rabbis were anachronisms.

Looking back on the stories, all very well written and very interesting, bring to me a feeling of unrelieved darkness. The religious Jewish life of Eastern Europe, already in decay and now in ashes. The Yiddish culture and its artists are dying. It's no wonder that Singer feels the influence of the demonic.
Profile Image for notgettingenough .
1,052 reviews1,264 followers
August 11, 2014
I’m just not a magic person. Unless ‘wand’ has an obvious coarse connotation, I don’t want one in my book. I don’t want devils, demons or invisible crowns of feathers in pillows. I don’t care if the spell is portrayed in an elegant way by Singer or a basic way for children by Rowling. I hereby give up on Singer, this is my second stab at him and I’m not finishing this one. This despite the fact that it isn’t all magic driven. The second story ‘A Day in Coney Island’ avoids all that – and I know, the magic realist clique are going to jump all over that statement and claim this story for themselves too. Well, I don’t think coins coming out of slots counts as magic. So there.

Rest here: http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...
Profile Image for Jasminka.
437 reviews56 followers
January 31, 2023
Zbirka priča poznatog Nobelovca, tipično za njega, mene on uvek nanovo oduševi i fascinira. Ovo je bilo drugi put da je čitam.
Profile Image for Old Man JP.
1,119 reviews53 followers
September 18, 2017
Outstanding collection of short stories. Singer creates such great characters and situations. His books are always a pleasure to read.
Profile Image for Szczupak.
224 reviews11 followers
June 29, 2018
Nie dajcie się oszukać tej ocenie.
Opowiadania Singera są genialne, ale tak mocno autentyczne, że aż podchodzą pod naturalizm. Czytanie 300 stron tego typu opowieści pod rząd, jest stanowczo zbyt dużym ładunkiem emocjonalnym, jak dla mnie.
Chyba najbardziej podobały mi się opowiadania "Dzień na Coney Island" i "Na wozie", ale sami musicie ocenić. W każdym razie to kawał dobrej literatury.
65 reviews1 follower
November 1, 2021
Recueil de nouvelles très riche.
On navigue entre Varsovie et New York, sur les pas d'étudiants en yeshiva, d'écrivains refugies, de villageois polonais.

Récits parfois drôle, mélancoliques, fantastiques, émouvants, mais tous empreints d'une forte judeité.

Seul problème à mon sens, la masse. Il n'est pas évident d'enchaîner 900 pages de nouvelles, le rythme de lecture est cassé, différent d'un roman.
Profile Image for Joseph.
Author 3 books41 followers
September 17, 2018
Magnificent collection - my favorite so far from Singer. I prefer the New York stories over the "Old World" ones and this collection has more of those. The New York stories have a very poignant atmosphere of alienation, a sense of discomfort with the world - great sadness mixed with humor and resignation. Most of them take place in the years after the Holocaust, and there is a condemnation of God and "His ways" throughout these stories, often conveyed with a few words in passing. There is a persistent sense of doom, fate and a dread that if there's an after-world, it could be the same or worse than this one. The other great fear is that there is nothing after death, just a total erasure, and this of course, heightens to a great degree the pointlessness of life.

From the story "Neighbors".

" In the years I knew him, he told me many lies. Countless women threw themselves into his arms - socialites, stars of the Metropolitan Opera, famous authoresses, ballet dancers, actresses. Each time Morris Terkeltoyb traveled to Europe on vacation, he returned with a list of fresh amorous adventures. Once, he showed me a love letter in handwriting I recognized as his own. He wasn't even ashamed to include in his stories scenes taken from world literature. Actually, he was a lonesome old bachelor with a sick heart and one kidney. He himself seemed unaware of the missing kidney; I knew about it from a relative of his."

That paragraph has a great range of humanity in it: from pathos to comedy with tragedy looming large over it all. Singer spent much of his time in the cafeterias of the Upper West side, listening and talking with Jewish immigrants. I'm sure that many of his stories came directly from these encounters.

From "The Beard":

"Once, when I edited a small literary magazine, he brought me a story which began: 'The day was cloudy and the sky loyal.' When I asked him what he meant by 'loyal,' his good eye looked at me with anger and suspicion, and he exclaimed, 'Don't bother me with this bookish nonsense. Either publish it or go to hell."

While Singer is a great artist who writes about universal human things, he is, I think, also the "most Jewish" of writers; nowhere else have I ever felt the essence of Jewish culture, like I feel when reading Singer, and it's a culture that I have taken deeply to heart. There is also something hauntingly nostalgic about his stories, they have perfectly preserved moments and episodes of the past. He is so intensely there, in whichever time he is writing about. It's also fascinating how his stories move from the most bizarre occult and spiritual subjects and thoughts, to the most banal and mundane, often within the same paragraph. He is one of my all-time favorites. I curse and ridicule any fool who gives him less than five stars.
Profile Image for Maxwell Bauman.
Author 29 books30 followers
June 22, 2017
Singer has a habit in many of his stories where the narrator will meet another character (more often than not in a cafeteria) and that character will then tell a story about their life, or someone else's. It's an interesting way to frame a story, especially because the speaker comes across as much more relaxed and candid.
There were four stories in particular that resonated with me. "A Crown of Feathers," "A Day in Coney Island," "The Third One," and "Grandfather and Grandson." If you read anything in this collection, go to those stories.
Profile Image for Mike Zickar.
377 reviews4 followers
October 17, 2016
What a delight! These stories are largely set in Warsaw, though some are set in New York City, and others in Russia. I just love the view into a different world, a different time, a different religion. Although many of the characters suffer tremendously in these stories, Singer writes with such delight and joy that its hard not to have a smile at the end of nearly each story.

I could reread these stories over and over again for the rest of my life!
Profile Image for Kara.
Author 23 books87 followers
September 24, 2015

Sadly, the sexism transcends religion. The overall attitude towards women here is very similar in tone to many other male writers of all religions in that time period.
Profile Image for Derek.
1,023 reviews76 followers
September 16, 2021
A CROWN OF FEATHERS is one of the finest collections of short-stories I’ve read lately. Singer is a master story-teller. Sometimes you forget you’re reading a story and imagine you’re being narrated to. His style is enviable. Easy, comprehensible and very universal in its specificity.

Chiefly kaleidoscopic, A Crown of Feathers curates immigrant stories underscored by the Pogrom and Jewish persecution. The themes are obviously laden with the poignant atmosphere of erasure, alienation and religious condemnation and dread. Dour subjects, no doubt, but Singer does a beautiful job of peppering these subjects with humour and sensitivity. I loved how the narrators (mostly writers themselves, also failed revolutionaries, shamans, and dispossessed geniuses) are quite unreliable. Especially when their pathos juxtaposes ‘Old World’ Judaic tradition with the New World; where generational rifts are growing larger by the day, where language bars easy assimilation – not that any assimilation is ever easy. It makes for very interesting reading.

Though a very ‘Jewish Experience’ book, there’s a lot of humanity contained within the margins of this collection. This is the mark of a very masterful writer. I won’t even go into the brilliant well-placed zingers he leaves at the end of each story. Just brilliant.
My fav stories are; A Crown of Feathers; The Captive; The Lantuch; The Briefcase; The Cabalist of East Broadway; A Quotation From Klopstock; The Third One; Her Son & The Beard
Profile Image for Mark Greenbaum.
196 reviews3 followers
November 3, 2018
There is a good deal of repetition in framing here, most stories in the collection centered around either a starving writer passing time with his fellow emigres in the dingy NYC cafeteria or a poor Jew in the old country, both trying desperately to find their place in the world. These stories remind me more than a little bit of Jerzy Kosinski's work, with their sense of alienation and quiet despair, their anonymity (the protagonist in both Crown and Steps is never named), albeit with Singer's works rated PG and not one generation removed from the old country and its diaspora. Even 50 years later, these works are surprisingly accessible and leavened with humor that still carries over the generations. The Jewish experience is cruel Singer tells us, we can't help but laugh.
Profile Image for George.
2,510 reviews
March 4, 2018
There are 24 very well written, easy to read, engaging short stories, averaging 10 to 12 pages each. The stories are about characters and events in their lives. Each story is intriguing, never boring. The themes are relationships, lovers, beliefs, settling in a new country... A number of stories start with someone coming into a cafe and meeting the protagonist who is a well known writer. The character, usually a male, then tells their story to the writer. Particularly enjoyed The Briefcase and A Day in Coney Island. Definitely worthwhile reading. If you enjoy the short story format, then Singer is a must read!
245 reviews9 followers
November 4, 2019
Singer's style is economical, concise. Here is an excellent example: "I dozed, dreamed , and forgot my dreams the moment I wakened. From time to time I looked out the window. The snow descended sparsely, peacefully, as if in contemplation of its own falling. The short day neared its end. The desolate park became a cemetery. The buildings on Central Park South towered like headstones. The sun was setting on Riverside Drive, and the water of the reservoir reflected a burning wick. The radiator near which I sat hissed and hummed: 'Dust, dust, dust.' The singsong penetrated my bones together with the warmth. It repeated a truth as old as the world, as profound as sleep."
Profile Image for Dwight Penny.
73 reviews1 follower
June 10, 2019
Interesting stories. Most of these were not the folk tales he's famous for, but second-hand stories, passed on to a narrator who happens to be a writer of Yiddish folk tales, by neighbors, other writers, readers who drop in on him. I was surprised at how many of them were about sex, and how ambiguous they were -- that is, they were not very moralistic. They hover in a world between religious tradition and atheistic existentialism. I got another collection in the bargain (free), called Passion. I'll keep it on my reading list.
Profile Image for Róbert Šedivý.
223 reviews3 followers
November 30, 2022
To napätie v príbehoch mám rád. Páči sa mi, keď je príbeh NAOZAJ príbehom. Mal by v ňom byť začiatok aj koniec, rovnako tak aj nejaký pocit, že na konci sa NAOZAJ niečo stane. Mám pocit, že rozprávačstvo sa postupne stáva vymierajúcim umením, ale ja touto amnéziou netrpím. Výborné je, keď čitateľ nevie, čo sa stane na konci. Ak od samého začiatku všetko vie, potom to už nie je príbeh, pričom môže byť aj dobre napísaný.
-Isaac Bashevis Singer-
Profile Image for 1.1.
459 reviews10 followers
June 22, 2018
A satisfying book packed with very fine short stories.
Profile Image for Serena.
84 reviews2 followers
September 19, 2020
"As my game with the powers on high stood now, I seemed to have won a dollar and some cents and to have lost refuge in America and a woman I truly loved."
Profile Image for Chris Gager.
2,010 reviews82 followers
August 16, 2023
I read this collection as part of a bigger collection that covered three of IBS's SS collections.
Profile Image for robin friedman.
1,848 reviews300 followers
October 23, 2023
A Crown Of Feathers

In his "Author's Note" to "A Crown of Feathers" (1973), Isaac Bashevis Singer observes that there are as many stories in the book dealing with American life as there are with pre-World War II Poland. Yet all the stories, whatever the setting, involve Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Poland. Singer writes about people and places he knows. With the apparent limitations of his subject, Singer finds that his "field is large and his responsibilities even larger". He tries to capture a sense of breadth and universality in his subject, finding that his characters "lived in the midst of almost all the social movements of our time" and that "their illusions were the illusions of mankind."

The 24 stories in this collection succeed in their aim of being both particular and universal. Singer received the 1974 National Book Award for "A Crown of Feathers" and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1978. His writing had a large following at the time which may have diminished in subsequent years. I have been reading and rereading his work and discovering it anew.

Most of the stories share a common structure with strong autobiographical components. A narrator, often a Yiddish writer, meets another Jewish person in a cafeteria, writer's club, or residence. Conversation develops between them frequently detailing their past relationships. The reader learns a lot about both the narrator and the interlocutor as well as enjoying the development of a strong sense of place. The stories often have strong psychic, supernatural components. Several of the stories in this collection involve use of the Ouija Board. Sexuality is also a large theme in almost all the stories. Virtually all the stories explore the tension between Hasidic Jewish life in Poland and modernity, whether in Europe, Israel, or the United States. The stories inevitably lead to lengthy and broad philosophical discussions about the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the meaning of life, the problem of evil. The questions do not get definitively answered. As a character in one of the stories observes: "Although I do not believe in God, I hear his voice." This position seems to me to characterize Singer himself. Alfred Kazin titles his review of Singer's book "The Atheist who Hears God's Voice" (New York Times, November 4, 1973) and draws insightful comparisons between Singer and other American authors, including Hawthorne, Melville, Henry James, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, who were raised in religious homes but moved away from traditional religion in pursuing their lives as writers.

I enjoyed Singer's depiction of life in New York City and Brooklyn and its contrast with the old world. The story "A Day in Coney Island" depicts Singer's early days as an immigrant to America trying to succeed as a writer. In addition to many passages of philosophical reflection, the story shows the pain of a failed love affair and offers a lengthy, unforgettable portrayal of Coney Island in Brooklyn which begins: "I had been in America for eighteen months, but Coney Island still surprised me. The sun poured down like fire. From the beach came a roar even louder than the ocean."

"The Cabalist of East Broadway" is another story I loved with its portrayal of frequenters of New York City coffee shops and cafeterias, the search for meaning in life, and mysticism. The protagonist is a mysterious student of the Caballa named Joel Yabloner who observes at a critical point that "Man does not live according to reason", a sentiment that Yabloner's life illustrates and that the narrator of the story adopts as his own.

The stories set in Europe include the title story "A Crown of Feathers" which differs from most of the remaining stories in its length and in its third person narration. It is a story of a young Jewish woman who abandons Judaism and converts based on a questionable mystical experience, and then repents and returns to her Jewish religion and to a former suitor. The story is interlaced with theological and philosophical discussion and suggests, in accordance with its title that "if there is such a thing as truth it is as intricate and hidden as a crown of feathers." The concluding story in the collection "Grandfather and Grandson" also explores in the context of opposition to Czarist Russia the conflict between religious traditionalism and modernity in a thoughtful way.

I have enjoyed getting to know Singer's stories again. I feel closer to and more involved with his characters and his thought than I anticipated. "The Crown of Feathers" is available in volume 2 of Singer's collected stories published by the Library of America. It is also available in a separate volume in the series "Isaac Bashevis Singer: Classic Editions" which aims to make "Singer's best-known work available for readers new and old."

Here is a link to the Kazin review. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytim...

Robin Friedman
Profile Image for Shane.
Author 1 book3 followers
January 12, 2016
Singer is a meaty writer. He's not someone whose stories I can plow through 4 or 5 at a time. And, even when I don't find an entire collection to be a masterpiece, I find him worthwhile to read and walk away with at least a handful of stories I felt strongly for.

A consistent theme throughout his writing is the crossroads of where tradition and religion meet modern thought and life. There's some understanding that must be met for those tradition and evolution to coalesce. And Singer's characters are on constant searches to understand how that understanding can possibly work. No matter if I connect with what a particular story is trying to convey or not, I always find his writing fascinating and often come away with interesting questions.

The two final stories, Neighbors and Grandfather and Grandson are definitely my favorites in this collection. Neighbors has this great line: "Actually, he was a lonesome old bachelor with a sick heart and one kidney. He himself seemed unaware of the missing kidney; I knew about it from a relative of his." And Grandfather and Grandson has this one: "Night and day still ruled in confusion."

Here's some other gems:
From The Cabalist Of East Broadway: "I remember the last words I heard from him: "Man does not live according to reason."
From The Magazine: "I knew he wouldn't move until he had come up with a joke. I said, "Feivel, you can't force humor. Let's go."

And here are four other stories I felt strongly for:
A Day In Coney Island
Property
The Briefcase
A Quotation From Klopstock
133 reviews2 followers
July 5, 2008
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and a National Book Award, Singer has collected a series of his stories under the title "A Crown of Feathers". I've read much of his work over and years, as many of the short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, and after reading about half of the stories in this volume, I decided to lay it aside. The awards he has received have been well-deserved, as his work provides a resource for those of us who want to understand the culture of immigrants from pre-war Poland He is extremely knowledgeable about that subject having lived in Poland at that time and having moved to this country along with many of the other about whom he writes. Perhaps my deciding not to finish the book was based on having read so many of the stories before.
Profile Image for Susan Fetterer.
363 reviews2 followers
February 19, 2013
Forging ahead in this entry of the Moveable Feast's year dedicated to National Book Award winning short story collections.....

Crown of Feathers is a kaleidoscope of snapshots and conversations underscored by pogrom and persecution. Immigration to the U.S. in the early 20th century fractured families resulting in generational rifts. Language hampered adaptation, new approaches challenged old Judaic traditions as Jews moved from Russia to Poland to the U.S.

E.B. Singer's stories within stories are peppered with humor and joy found in the everyday and he, a masterful storyteller, leaves readers with a zinger at the very end of each story.
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