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Book Summary and Reviews of Jacob's Folly by Rebecca Miller

Jacob's Folly by Rebecca Miller

Jacob's Folly

A Novel

by Rebecca Miller

  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2013, 384 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

A luminous novel—funny and moving in equal measure—that shines with the author's unique talents

Jacob's Folly is a rollicking, ingenious, saucy book that takes on desire, faith, love, acting—and reincarnation.

The novel brims with sparkling, unexpected characters: Jacob, a Jewish peddler living in eighteenth-century France; Leslie and Deirdre Senzatimore, a settled American couple; Masha, an alluring young Ultra-Orthodox Jew, who is also gravely ill. In Rebecca Miller's self-assured second novel, these four individuals will find their fates intertwined when Jacob is reincarnated as a fly in contemporary Long Island. and reincarnation.

Miller's quirky humor and acute, original intelligence animate a wonderfully memorable protagonist. Through the unique lens of Jacob's consciousness, she explores transformation in all its different guises—personal, spiritual, literal. As she considers the hold of the past on the present, the power of private hopes and dreams, and the collision of fate and free will, Miller's world—which is our own, transfigured by her clear gaze and by her sharp, surprising wit—comes to life. Leslie's desire to act as hero and rescuer; Jacob's disastrous marriage to the childlike Hodel and his obsession with Masha—Miller sketches her characters' interior lives with compassion, subtlety, and an exceptionally light touch. Jacob's Folly is wildly inventive and ultimately moving; it will leave the reader, no less than its characters, transformed.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. A challenging read, yet remarkably entertaining and ultimately gripping." - Kirkus Reviews

This information about Jacob's Folly was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Santi

Didn't quite make it
Judaism (a generalised concept, granted) is the main thread running through this book. Jacob in eighteenth-century France, initially persecuted as the Jew he was born as and later living indulgently as the Christian he became after another man's bet, are very interesting from a historical perspective. It also exploits in my opinion the notion that Orthodoxy is Good and Clean and everything else is Bad and Soiled. The descriptions of Jacob's and everybody else's sexual shenanigans garner a bored familiarity. None of it is new.

The modern Masha is the typical teenager trying to escape the rules, expectations, and stultifying traditions that smother her ambitions and do not empathise with her talents or needs. The coy but rather unnatural feelings of the orthodox Jewish girl encountering another kind of social acceptability out there are beautifully described. I missed the significance of the chest pains - would she have behaved differently if she was healthy? and the wild river demon scenarios of all the females were a bit hard to swallow. She is a well-rounded character, true to type, easy to identify with (most of the time) and her final choice was a relief - regardless of whether it was "right" or not.

Then there is Leslie. The man with the woman's name and very much a female cast to his character. Forget the descriptions of how tall and big he is, inside he is not. Always doing good, always bearing the circumstances of his father's death like a monkey on his shoulder. Is he a typical middle-ager, bored with marriage whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not, falling for the young voluptuous but innocent beauty? (Wait, does this not also sound familiar?) There are some deep secrets that shaped him and which were quite unexpected when revealed but I can quite imagine the book without him. Does Jacob really need him to break down his own Jewish angst?

Jacob reincarnated as a fly is an idea that many will find original, funny, etc. I found it embarrassing. I know it's a novel but really - some basic Muscan research would have been appreciated. If I need to believe in the other characters, I also need to believe in Jacob, the fly, even as a fantasy. Nah.

The final verdict - the humour in this book is not of the caliber I expected. The characters are as good as any out there, and the Jewish theme, although written about in literally thousands of other books, is still sufficiently explored to make it a stimulating read. There are comments that deserve to become quotes and some throw-away observations that strike true and deep. Not a wowser but if it comes your way, read it.

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Author Information

Rebecca Miller

Rebecca Miller is the author of the short-story collection Personal Velocity, her feature-film adaptation of which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, which she also adapted for the screen. She lives in New York and Ireland with her family.

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