Songs for the Butcher's Daughter

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

An inventive literary debut, Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter is a sweeping Yiddish-inflected immigrant saga and love story about a young translator, an aging poet, and the faith in words that survives even the death of a language.

Summer, sweltering, 1996. A book warehouse in western Massachusetts. A man at the beginning of his adult life—and the end of his career rope—becomes involved with a woman, a language, and a great lie that will define his future. Most auspiciously of all, he runs across Itsik Malpesh, a ninety-something Russian immigrant who claims to be the last Yiddish poet in America. When a set of accounting ledgers in which Malpesh has written his memoirs surfaces—twenty-two volumes brimming with adventure, drama, deception, passion, and wit—the young man is compelled to translate them, telling Malpesh's story as his own life unfolds, and bringing together two paths that coincide in shocking and unexpected ways.

Moving from revolutionary Russia to New York's Depression-era Lower East Side to millennium's-end Baltimore with drama, adventure, and boisterous, feisty charm to spare, the unpeeling of this friendship is a story of the entire twentieth century. For fans of Nicole Krauss, Nathan Englander, Richard Powers, Amy Bloom, and Lore Segal, this book will amaze at every turn: narrated by two poets (one who doesn't know he is and one who doesn't know he isn't), it is a wise and warm look at the constant surprises and ineluctable ravages of time. It's a book about religion, love, translation, and typesetting—how one passion can be used to goad and thwart the other—and most of all, about how faith in the power of words can survive even the death of a language.

A novel of faith lost and hope found in translation, Songs for the Butcher's Daughter is at once an immigrant literary saga, a love story for the ages, a Yiddish-inflected laughing-through-tears tour of world history for Jews and Gentiles alike, and a testament to Manseau's ambitious genius.

"An extraordinary novel, and Itsik Malpesh is one of literature's most stunning achievements." —Junot Díaz

"Songs for the Butcher's Daughter is a completely original and exciting novel that, from its first few lines, holds the reader mesmerised. We are in the hands of a supreme storyteller, an author of wit and charm, one who has a breathtaking flair for language. This is a seriously impressive and accomplished work for a debut novel, identifying Manseau as a writer of great and exciting potential, one able to see the world vividly, even through other people's eyes." —Weekend Australian

"In his debut novel, [Manseau] reaches across cultures to compose a living, breathing portrait of a bad-tempered but charmingly eloquent poet and the young man chosen to bring his words forward in time...The translator's inexperience puts [poet] Malpesh's cynical voice into perspective, as the young man's clumsy first experiences with modern-day romance stand in stark, sometimes poignant contrast to Malpesh...who remembers his 90-something years with equal parts impish humor and profound melancholy...A terrific book with a believable protagonist who's given ample room to tell his tale." —Kirkus Reviews

"Songs for the Butcher's Daughter is a book about writing, a warm, funny, and fascinating testament to the power of words, a power that outlives a dying language and transcends love." —Jewish Book World

"Seductive and playful, the novel, with many unforgettable scenes, is also a serious meditation on language, love, loyalty and memory." —New York Jewish Week

"Ranging from pogroms to poetry, from the purity of sex to the impurity of translation, from the Pale of Settlement to the Lower East Side to Eretz Yisroael, [and] written with utmost integrity as well as dramatic momentum, Songs for the Butcher's Daughter is a delicious read." —Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of Sign and Wonders

"One of the most original and gripping novels I've read in a long time. From the very first page, I knew I was in the hands of a mesmerizing storyteller and born writer. Blessed with a biting wit, a huge heart, and a dazzling flair for language—how we use it and how it defines us—Manseau is the real thing. This is a gorgeous debut novel." —Ellen Feldman, author of The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank

"Huge in scope and soul, Songs for the Butcher's Daughter is a sweeping, lyrical, utterly consuming epic. Peter Manseau is a writer with the heart of a mystic, and his novel is an extraordinary gift." —Elisa Albert, author of The Book of Dahlia and How This Night Is Different

"Songs for the Butcher's Daughter explores with profound insight the treacherous territory of language: its elusive, inconstant and enigmatic character and its fundamental role in how we define ourselves as human beings." —Linda Olsson, author of Astrid and Veronika

"Peter Manseau has created a rich tapestry of European and American Jewish life at the turn of the twentieth century. This beautifully written novel of love and tragedy is a magic-realist tale filled with wonderful detail. We join Mr. Manseau on a hundred-year journey that weaves together the Old and New Worlds." —Martin Lemelman, author of Mendel's Daughter