The Cantor’s Daughter
by Scott Nadelson
Hawthorne, 257 pp., $15.95 (paper)
The characters in Scott Nadelson’s collection of stories don’t fare particularly well down in the emotional trenches of their relationships. Despite efforts to the contrary and usually with the best of intentions, there always seem to be inherent flaws, careless omissions, and irretrievable miscalculations that undermine already established relationships or preclude heartfelt desires to connect in a meaningful way. Nadelson is a gifted storyteller whose award-winning 2004 debut, Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, mined similar terrain. He is adept at peeling away the superfluous layers and getting down to the unpleasant intricacies that are a part of our everyday relationships, be they parental, familial, marital, fraternal, or casual. The title story, in which a troubled 16-year-old survives a harrowing prom night with insight into a more redeeming future, is perhaps the only one of these eight episodes that closes with a ray of sunlight. “Headhunter” tells of a decades-long friendship that ends when moral boundaries are breached. “Walter’s Girls” examines three sisters in the aftermath of their father’s suicide. “Rehearsal” finds two emotionally distant brothers dealing with their past in an attempt to reconcile on the eve of one’s wedding. Elsewhere, two singles who meet on a cruise ship attempt to steer clear of rocky shoals and establish a nascent relationship. These beautifully crafted stories are populated by Jewish suburbanites living in New Jersey, but ethnicity doesn’t play too large a role here. Rather, it is the humanity of the characters and our empathy for them that binds us to their plights.
This article appears in June 9 • 2006.