The Convert

A new story collection from the razor-sharp wit of Tova Reich, who was described by Jonathan Safran Foer as "fearless, hysterically funny, and with the sharpest eye for truth and falsity. . . a brilliant writer."

The searing and hilarious satire of Tova Reich knows no boundaries. Here in this story collection, she explores end-of-life truths and surprises, daring to make sense of the dilemma of the meaning of Jewishness in a world that is drowning in violence. In “Managed Care,” a beloved son drafts his mother’s obituary in advance, and hastens her demise as a final act of filial devotion. In “Solidarity,” the recipient of a widow’s generosity turns violently against her. In “Mengele in Jerusalem,” as the title suggests, we meet the former Nazi war criminal in the most unlikely of places.

Then there is the title novella, in which a convert must carry on after the death of her domineering mistress, herself also a convert. In “Gifted and Talented,” the doting mother of a gifted child catalogues her losses. And finally, in “Moscow Night in New York,” a group of Russian ex-pats gathers in Brooklyn to wonder why all the important things have been washed away by all the unimportant ones. When it is over, our host finds his wife weeping at the kitchen sink. “Why?” he asks. “Because I’m out of cigarettes,” she replies furiously.

In her previous work, Reich has turned a Borscht Belt resort into Camp Jeffrey Epstein where sex offenders find their just desserts (Camp Jeff, Seven Stories, 2024), she has shown aspects of the Holocaust legacy as a competitive game of one-uppance (My Holocaust, 2007). Here, Reich turns up the heat to greet our end-times.

"Tova Reich’s voice is a tornado that overturns the landscape and the language of everything it touches. Her literary daring has no equal." —Cynthia Ozick

"A ferociously funny book, The Convert is a scalpel of satire that slices through sanctimony and self-deception. Pitting zeal against appetite, Tova Reich’s marvelous stories unfold as comedies of belief that darken, almost imperceptibly, into tragedies of conscience." —Benjamin Balint, author of Kafka's Last Trial

"In the collection’s most lucid moments, Reich dares readers to consider the nature of victimhood, self-interest, and misguided faith." —Publishers Weekly