Jacob Bloch

Jacob is the novel’s central character and protagonist. As the novel begins, he is a successful writer for television, a practicing if not terribly spiritual Jew, and deeply engaged with four generations of his family – his grandfather (Isaac); his father and mother (Irv and Deborah); his wife (Julia); and his three sons (Sam, Max, and Benjy). While the novel contains relatively few considerations of Jacob’s work life, the story’s plot and themes are primarily defined by the other two main aspects of his life, both of which – his religious heritage and his family – intertwine and interact. In other words, how Jacob experiences being Jewish significantly shapes his relationships with his family, while the ways in which he experiences being a grandson, son, husband, and father all shape his perspectives on being Jewish, with its various rituals, rules, and values (not, however, its spiritual elements...