Two Jewish novels set in the Southern United States, Ain’t No Grave (Open Road Media, 2024) by Mary Glickman and Goyhood (Central Avenue, 2024) by Reuven Fenton, are the One Bay One Book selections for 2024-2025.
Ain’t No Grave explores the evolving friendship of a Jewish boy and a Black girl from backwoods Georgia through their adulthood in 1913 Atlanta, where they become enmeshed in the pivotal murder trial of Leo Frank and witness the growth of antisemitism in the region.
Click here for extensive resources for discussing Ain’t No Grave.
Ain’t No Grave “is a book for our times. I was alternately outraged, sad, wiser, hopeful, and yearning for more… A fabulous, significant, beautifully rendered addition to historical fiction.”
–Elizabeth Millane, author of Sixty Blades of Grass
Read reviews of Ain’t No Grave from Jewish Post and News and Foreword Reviews.
In Goyhood, two estranged brothers from Georgia—one who has become a yeshiva student in Brooklyn and the other who has stayed close to home with a decidedly irreligious lifestyle—are brought together by an unsettling revelation about their identities and go on an unexpected road trip through the South.
Click here for extensive resources for discussing Goyhood.
“Rarely do you encounter a work of literary fiction, brilliant in its execution and engaging in its indelible characters, that is also a romp, a grand entertainment. Reuven Fenton’s Goyhood is all of that—its language rich and precise, its people irresistible, and its marvelous story a literal joyride. This is a novel that thrills with its hilarity and humbles with its bigness of heart.”
–Steve Stern, author of The Village Idiot
Read reviews of Goyhood from The Forward, The Associated Press, and The American Israelite.
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One Bay One Book is a year-long conversation connecting Bay Area readers through discussions and events centered around a selection of current Jewish literature and its themes.
Book Groups:
Sets of Ain’t No Grave and Goyhood are available free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis to book groups through our Book Club in a Box lending program. The Library also offers eBook and audiobook versions through our eBook program. For more information, please write to leah@jewishcommunitylibrary.org
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