SOURCE: French, Sean. “Earthly Powers.” New Statesman and Society 1, no. 21 (28 October 1988): 33-34.

In the following review, French asserts that The Death of Methuselah, and Other Stories is “a wonderful collection of stories” by “one of the great tale-tellers of this century.”

“The Smuggler,” one of the stories in this collection, is little more than an anecdote, just over seven pages long. An autograph-hunter comes to see Singer in his Broadway apartment. Singer asks why he needs autographs. The man explains: “Some little madness everyone must have. If Jack the Ripper were resurrected from his grave, people would run to get his autograph, especially women.”

It emerges that the man is a failed Yiddish poet:

“How can you know whether a person is a poet or not? If an editor needs to fill a hole in his magazine and he publishes a poem of yours, then you are a...