kaddish.com: A novel

For a price, a student will take on the practice of saying Kaddish for the lost family member; this arrangement seems to answer Larry’s non-existent prayers until, years later when he has returned to his faith, he must grapple with this decades old decision.

The novel kaddish.com has moments of deep beauty, largely drawn from the revelations Larry (later called Shuli) makes about his own choices when he had strayed from his faith as a younger man. In those revelations, we see Englander at his best: contemplative, mystical, honest. However, the rapid jump from Larry at 30 to Shuli at 50 is so quick; it is hard to digest the passage of time and the events that bred the transformation of the protagonist.