For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories

Energized, irreverent, and deliciously inventive stories from Pulitzer-nominated, bestselling author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.

In the collection's hilarious title story, a Hasidic man gets a special dispensation from his rabbi to see a prostitute. "The Wig" takes an aging wigmaker and makes her, for a single moment, beautiful. In "The Tumblers," Englander envisions a group of Polish Jews herded toward a train bound for the death camps and, in a deft, imaginative twist, turns them into acrobats tumbling out of harm's way.

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a work of startling authority and imagination--a book that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. It hearalds the arrival of a remarkable new storyteller.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 03/21/2000
ISBN: 9780375704437
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.51lbs
Size: 8.06h x 5.38w x 0.59d
Award: National Jewish Book Award - Nominee
Award: Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award - Nominee
Award: L.A. Times Book Prize - Nominee
Award: Bard Fiction Prize - Winner

Review Citations: New York Times 04/09/2000 pg. 36