New: Book Report: How I Came into my Inheritance (and other true stories)

'Lene is out of the hospital. Meanwhile, Alexandra says that her mother is sick; Team Mystic Fish might be on shaky ground this weekend. I have no health problems myself; in theory I have no cause for complaint. But I do complain: will you people please stop having health problems? It's interfering with my leisure. Please consider this request with the weight it deserves.

Right, right so I'm supposed to be talking about How I Came into My Inheritance. This is a collection of short family stories by Dorothy Gallagher. Her family had the ill fortune to be Jewish in Russia. Some got out to the USA in time to experience the depression as others stayed in Russia to be starved by Stalin. These people squabble and don't seem to help each other much. It's interesting to watch Communists come to terms with how Stalinism turned out. This book is bleak, but funny in the way that reading about other peoples' problems can be funny. As long as you don't know those other people or their relatives.

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Posted 2007-05-17