[.ca] The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky (ISBN 1551925567)

Amazon.ca:
The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky is the touching, well-wrought story of the Lapinsky family, Jewish immigrants living in Toronto in the '30s and '40s. The focus of the novel falls on Sonny, the third son of four, and his relationship with his father, Yacov, a street peddler and stubborn traditionalist. When Sonny marries an Italian girl, Yacov says the prayer for the dead over him although he secretly admires his son, who will grow into a champion boxer. A key event in the story takes place in August 1933 when all four sons are involved in the Christie Pits riot, a battle between Nazi sympathizers and Jewish youth at a local ballpark. The tragedy that strikes the family there echoes Yacov's experiences during a pogrom in Russia. This is a true-to-life depiction of Jewish family life during the Depression. The period dialogue ("Aw Boss. That's nice, but we better go and break the news. You know. To our families-like.") sounds just right and is not overdone. The descriptions of the boxing matches are pure adrenalin and the characters feel genuine, especially Sophie, the long-suffering mother, and Checkie Seigelman, a small-time, cigar-puffing gangster. Unfortunately, the structure is a bit contorted, resulting in descriptions of the riot both near the beginning and again near the end, and some sections feel like filler. At times the writing is cartoonish ("Ralph goes down, silver and white stars swirl across his vision") but for its depiction of the period, this novel is worth a read. --Mark Frutkin

Tulchinsky's Latest is a Total-Knock-Out:
The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky by Karen X. Tulchinsky is a phenomenal deviation from her previous style. Although I have come to love her wit, humorous characterizations and dialogues in previous books, I appreciate the maturity of her latest achievement. Her novel is based on the Christie Pits riots and depicts the four brothers of the Lapinsky family struggling through the depression into the fifties. In so doing, she connects a multitude of characters on whom the brothers rely and paints an exceptional portrayal of resistance. Tulchinsky's keen eye for injustice, which her reader's have become accustomed to, is different and arguable much more advanced than in her previous fiction. Centering her characters around the horribly ambivalent situation of Canadian Jewish immigrants during the Second World War, she captures a slice of Canadian identity often left untold. In addition, she convincingly exposes hypocrisies surrounding her closeted gay character through his relationship to the military and his family and surroundings. As tragic as many of the chapters of The Five Books are, Tulchinsky still delivers humour and moments of lightness laced with profound triumph. It is no small feat to build such a massive conglomerate of intertwined tales around a central metaphor. In The Five Books, that metaphor is boxing or, if one wants to make a broader leap, fighting. The book demonstrates what I believe Tulchinsky is trying to share - that fighting must be methodical, structured, practiced and, most importantly, that the struggle to win a fight begins and ends in the heart.

A simple delight:
It was purely happenchance that I came across this novel. I was in a musty, basement second-hand bookshop in Kingston, looking for something else entirely, when I found it. Well, 'we found each other' is probably more appropriate, given the end result: an almost perfectly satisfying reading experience. (Full disclosure: I was sold by the cover...and the jacket blurbs. What can I tell you; I'm a sucker for great artwork and tasty marketing. To be truthful, the packaging, the cue words, the intimation of what the novel promised was what had me reaching for my wallet.) My personal reading preference is for literatary novels, featuring prose that has me, as a writer, wishing I'd written it. I crave if not the transcendent, then the staggering. As novelist, I have a love of powerful prose. As a screenwriter, I have an appreciation of the visual. But either way, I love a great story. A tale well-told. 'The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky' is strong on the storytelling...if not exactly scoring top marks on the literary impact. The story spans (if only tangentally) a century and three continents. And yet it's fiercely focused on a Toronto family. It has Sonny Lapinsky at its core, but everyone plays a part, everyone has something to contribute. What I appreciated most about Ms Tulchinsky's efforts was that she chose to mix things up chronologically, and how well she managed the mix; the layout was refreshing. And I never felt anything but confidence coming off the page. I don't think 'masterful' is too great an adjective to use in this regard. As for the actual writing, her literary 'chops'... Well, I chose the title of my review carefully. Her style is simple. As in 'spare and effective'. There is nothing strained about it, nothing flowery. It reminded me of Richard Russo's...although hers is even more factual. That she writes in the present-tense undoubtedly magnifies the effect. No, it's not 'Fall on Your Knees'. (And granted, I'm not sure Ms Tulchinsky has it in her to write that way, or whether she'd even want to.) But the novel did captivate me completely from start to finish. And in conclusion, I'll pay Ms Tulchinsky as heartfelt a compliment as I can: it would make an incredible film/mini-series. Oh; did I mention I was a screenwriter...?