Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Summary and Reviews of Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman

Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman

Kaaterskill Falls

by Allegra Goodman
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Aug 1, 1998, 324 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Aug 1999, 324 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

Goodman's deft sense of character brings alive an appealing and engrossing cast, fleshed out by nuances of place and time.

In Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman, author of The Family Markowitz turns her pen to the intimate details of a close-knit Jewish summer community in the Catskills. Goodman's deft sense of character brings alive an appealing and engrossing cast, fleshed out by nuances of place and time.

The synagogue is crowded with men, and warm despite the November chill outside. When Isaac arrives for services on Friday evening, he sees neighbors and friends all clustered together in the entryway. The Kollel students are coming in from the little chapel where they study. Dressed alike in their rumpled black suits, carrying their great black-bound books, they pass through the crowd into the main sanctuary where the older men are arriving, businessmen coming from downtown, the storekeepers from the neighborhood, the retired grandfathers. Young and old mix together, and their languages mix: English and German, a little Hebrew, a little Yiddish. Isaac does not notice the mixture; he grew up with it, and he understands all the languages equally.

"Did you hear that the Rav is holding his office hours again?"

"No, I didn't know."

"He's holding them on Tuesdays again."

"The same hours?"

"Yes. Of course, he's limiting his visitors, but baruch hashem, he&...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!


The questions, discussion topics, and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of Allegra Goodman's Kaaterskill Falls. We hope they will enrich your understanding of this wonderful novel of faith, families, and ancient tradition--a story of passionate love and passionate conflict that confirms Goodman as one of the singular writers of her generation.

It is the summer of 1976. In the beautiful country of upstate New York lies Kaaterskill, a tiny town where Jewish Orthodox summer people and Yankee year-rounders live side by side from June to August. Elizabeth Shulman, mother of five daughters, needs a project of her own outside her cloistered community. Across the street, Andras Melish cannot ...
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Wall Street Journal
Allegra Goodman is a prodigy. . . .She writes with such winning grace, such deftly evocative intimacy of detail.

Wall Street Journal
Allegra Goodman is a prodigy. . . .She writes with such winning grace, such deftly evocative intimacy of detail.

People Magazine
Like the late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, Goodman wrings ineffable strands of passion from the quietest of hopes and disappointments. It is a carefully observed and haunting world.

People Magazine
Like the late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, Goodman wrings ineffable strands of passion from the quietest of hopes and disappointments. It is a carefully observed and haunting world.

The New York Times Book Review.
There are times when one wishes for some passion--some unholy mess or some desperate humor--to erupt from the pages, but the darker impulses are not what interest Goodman. Indeed, she prefers the broad strokes of a panoramic view to the fine shadings of character. Her truest talent is for imposing a shape on the little, everyday disturbances that distract most of her writing peers; she has an almost 19th-century ability to create a sense of linkage, of one existence impinging on the next.

Reader Reviews

Katerine T.

Great read
Surprised to find that there are no other reviews for this book. I really enjoyed Kaaterskill Falls. I felt that the character development was fantastic- I felt a lot of sympathy for the sisters. I learned a lot about the more conservative ...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Kaaterskill Falls, try these:

  • Bridge of Sighs jacket

    Bridge of Sighs

    by Richard Russo

    Published 2008

    About this book

    More by this author

    Bridge of Sighs courses with small-town rhythms and the claims of family. Here is a town, as well as a world, defined by magnificent and nearly devastating contradictions.

  • The First Desire jacket

    The First Desire

    by Nancy Reisman

    Published 2005

    About this book

    Set in Buffalo, New York in the 1930s and '40s, The First Desire is a book of great emotional power that brings to life the weave of love, grief, tradition, and desire that binds a family together.

We have 5 read-alikes for Kaaterskill Falls, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Allegra Goodman
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Second hand books are wild books...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..