The Family Moskat A Novel

The vanished way of life of Eastern European Jews in the early part of the twentieth century is the subject of this extraordinary novel. All the strata of this complex society were populated by powerfully individual personalities, and the whole community pulsated with life and vitality. The affairs of the patriarchal Meshulam Moskat and the unworldly Asa Heshel Bannet provide the center of the book, but its real focus is the civilization that was destroyed forever in the gas chambers of the Second World War.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–91) was the author of many novels, stories, and children’s books. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.

“Singer’s deep-running narrative makes a microcosm of the Warsaw ghetto. Reminiscent in scope of the great Russian novels of the nineteenth century, his novel moves with the leisure of abundance—eddying, pausing, plunging. Its surface ripples with passages of delicate description, trenchant dialogue and precisely observed detail; its depths roll forward with the heavy, hidden surge of life itself.”—Time

“The Family Moskat, although it deals with an era that has been buried in the ashes of the Holocaust, retains its strength, and has an appeal that will fascinate all readers.” –Detroit Jewish News