The Peace Process A Novella and Stories [Paperback]

A brilliant new collection from one of American literature’s most original and hilarious purveyors of dark comedy

Silenced by the horrors of Nazi Germany, a Jewish satirist is inspired to write again by his biggest fan: Joseph Goebbels. A retired English teacher dies on the operating table and wakes up to an afterlife in which literature does not exist; he can claim any masterpiece as his own, from The Catcher in the Rye to Crime and Punishment—if only he can remember what actually happens in those stories. On his first trip to the Holy Land, a down-on-his-luck filmmaker reluctantly agrees to help a young Israeli Arab escape to New York, only to watch in dismay as the upstart lands a buxom, Yiddish-speaking girlfriend and a monster movie deal.
 
Mario Puzo once said that the world of Bruce Jay Friedman’s short fiction is “like a Twilight Zone with Charlie Chaplin.” Ironic, clever, perceptive, and hysterical, The Peace Process is vintage Friedman—fourteen finely crafted tales that take dead aim at the sweet spot between pleasure and pain.

“The master of the deadpan is on top of his game at 85 with a wise, funny new collection.” —Tabletmagazine

“Larry David has nothing on Friedman in finding the absurd in ordinary situations. . . . Jewish humor lives in this frequently hilarious and thoughtful collection.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[The Peace Process] is vintage Friedman: anarchic and obsessive, funny and sad in equal measure and often in the same story.” —Jewish Book Council

“This collection of Friedman’s madcap stories is replete with tricky plots, wacky traps, and characters who ensnare themselves in their own ridiculous choices. . . . Funny, sometimes brutally so. . .l3%