Reviews | February 11, 2020
Unencumbered Exuberance: Four Jewish Comic Novelists of Note
Bradley Babendir
In the titular essay of Adam Kirsch’s essay collection Who Wants to Be a Jewish Writer? the critic and poet recounts the ways in which many of his and my canonical forebears rejected the moniker. He quotes Philip Roth referring to “American Jewish Writer” as an epithet. Saul Bellow was slightly more diplomatic, saying, “I have tried to fit my soul into the Jewish-writer category, but it does not feel comfortably accommodated there. Lionel Trilling couldn’t find “anything in [his] professional intellectual life” that traced back to his Judaism.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

Reviews
Dec 11 2020
Review: Why, Oh Why, Poetry? On Recent Prose about Poetry and the Future of the Art
Why, Oh Why, Poetry?: On Recent Prose about Poetry and the Future of the Art Andrew Mulvania Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder. Ecco, 2017, 256 pp., $24.99 (hardcover). The… read more

Reviews
Jun 19 2020
Review: Marching On: Rereading Little Women and Louisa May Alcott
You likely know the plot of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868-9 novel, Little Women. Whether you’ve read the book or seen one of its adaptations to film or screen, you probably… read more

Reviews
Feb 11 2020
Unencumbered Exuberance: Four Jewish Comic Novelists of Note
In the titular essay of Adam Kirsch’s essay collection Who Wants to Be a Jewish Writer? the critic and poet recounts the ways in which many of his and my… read more