Shadows on the Hudson

By: Isaac Bashevis Singer

Narrated by: Theodore Bikel

This timeless saga traces the intertwined lives of a group of prosperous Jewish Holocaust survivors in New York City after World War II. A chain of events disrupts the close-knit community as each refugee struggles to reconcile the horrific past with the difficult present and explores both the nature of faith and the nature of love.

Marriages and affairs fall apart; age and death take their toll; the wisdom of the scripture and kabbalah and the precepts of the great philosophers and avatars of modern science are passionately debated in extended conversations that seethe with drama.

From gloomy Upper West Side apartments to the Yiddish resorts of Miami, Shadows on the Hudson covers the territory of American Jewry in the aftermath of the Holocaust, providing insight into the contradictory impulses that motivate us all.

©1998 Isaac Bashevis Singer (P)1998 Phoenix Books, Inc.

Excellent book

The book is of course amazing, and Theodore Bikel’s reading is fantastic. The other two readers, however, mispronounced almost all of the Yiddish and Hebrew terms which is extremely unfortunate.

Very compelling despite the flaws

Great fun. Manages to be both trashy and a thought-provoking study of how the Holocaust changed the surviving generation’s view of love and marriage. Only complaint is that narrator Julie Harris is 40 years too old for her role.

The best

Run to buy this and listen!
The best of Singer and performed wonderfully
So sorry to have it end !

It wound up drawing me in

I wasn't sure whether I would like this book or not. It turned out to be engrossing. Sometimes it turns into a bit of a soap opera. I suppose that was inevitable given its origin as a serialized work. In any case, it provides a window onto American Jewish society at a particular phase of its development. It features sinners and saints, but mostly people who are a mixture of both. Singer mentions everything from quantum theory to phylacteries. The panorama is broad!