Ben Nadler

(Included in the Green Fairy Book)

One has to ask why someone would just take a bite out of a white snake, but then people ate lampfreys and other shit back then that most people of the 21sdt century would find gross. Kindness to animals really does pay, though one has to wonder if the 'hero' would have been as kind if he hadn't gained the ability to communicate with animals. Oh well.

I had a very difficult time getting into this book. The first hundred pages or so were like wading through mud. After struggling through those, I was pleasantly surprised at how engaged I was with Sammy's character. You begin to thoroughly care for his well-being and hope for a good life for him, despite his seemingly endless stream of bad decisions. This was not my usual fare, but by the end of the story I was astounded at how raw it felt. I felt "kicked in the gut" so-to-speak. The ending, show more while completely unexpected, was the most perfect end I could have come up with. show less

A delightful celebration of Jewish delicatessens in an accessible comics format, full of history and humor, and guaranteed to make you hungry.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. A number of similarities between this book and my family life, (including my living in New Jersey as a child, getting into punk rock & atheism as a teenager, as well as my father's military service and California linguist school training) made the novel highly appealing. The house shows, trainhoppers, dumpstering, and late night adventures all sounded right. The struggling against conformist religious pressures sounded right. The joining the show more military to escape a tough situation sounded right. But then things started getting silly and over the top... Snorting coke off a peacenik foreigner's breasts and getting arrested/thrown out of the military? Freeloading with some random veteran he hitchhiked with while he was a fugitive? The conversion to Christianity, the subway hunt, the missionary work, the spy games? It was all just too much nonsense after a fairly strong and realistic start. Wish it could've stayed on track. show less