The Black Hole Pastrami
Sixteen tales, both humorous and poignant, many of which examine family relations and Ukrainian Jewish heritage. The collection opens with the title story, which describes a vegetarian son venturing to a deli to buy his dying father a black pastrami on rye with extra mustard. The errand leads the man to reflect on his own life, marked by a stultifying sense of helplessness. “Here’s Looking at You, Syd” is about a husband and wife who journey to Moscow to adopt a child but are confronted by a wall of Russian bureaucracy. Other stories examine coming of age; in “The Buzz Bomb,” a young boy takes playing war games too far and is met with disastrous consequences. Similarly in “The Wrong Napkin,” childish naïveté leads to an embarrassing misjudgment and a chat about the differences between men and women. In “Goth Girl,” a young aspiring writer falls for a darkly aloof poet. Stories such as “Avalanche” and “My Left Foot” celebrate familial relationships with pet dogs, whereas “America’s Test Chicken” is a tongue-in-cheek tale of the launch of “one of the hottest cooking shows on cable TV.” Things take a weirdly humorous twist in “Seventh Sense” when a dentist offers “tissue harvested from the departed” to address a patient’s gum complaint. The collection closes with “The Sugar Thief,” about an embarrassing auntie who steals sugar sachets from the diner.
Prizes/Awards/Nominations
• Five-star rating from Readers’ Favorite in 2023.
• Finalist, Eyelands International Book Awards (under pre-publication title, Everything Lost and Loved, 2022).
Praise
“Satisfying and often joyful, these short stories concern family connections and childhood memories.”
– Foreword Reviews
“Feingold’s stories are written in the first person and emotionally have the feel of autobiography. The release captured at the close of The Black Hole Pastrami is profoundly moving: ‘The black hole cracked open; light streamed out. For the first time, I forgave myself. For not saving them. For failing at the impossible.’
The author is also expert at describing shifting personal perspectives; one regards the aunt who embarrasses her teenage nephew by stealing sugar differently when it’s explained that she lived through rationing during the Depression and World War II.
Although Feingold’s stories can be darkly poignant, they can also make readers laugh out loud, as when the patient with the tissue graft in ‘Seventh Sense’ announces: ‘I taste dead people.’ The collected tales are also intriguing due to the echoes that link them. Further references to The Sixth Sense star Bruce Willis crop up in other stories, as do mentions of the black pastrami, making for delightful moments.
Feingold has a pleasantly unconventional descriptive style, unusually capturing events such as sitting in the dentist’s chair: ‘my mouth as wide open as an angry hippopotamus, as he poked with cold pointy instruments’ … a textured, imaginative debut collection. Inventive and emotionally observant writing.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“Jeffrey M. Feingold writes with tremendous charm and has a gentle, affectionate attitude towards his characters and their situations in THE BLACK HOLE PASTRAMI, a collection of stories that are quick and comforting reads. There’s an echo of Jean Shepherd’s work here, a humorous and slightly fictionalized recounting of an affectionately-recalled if not perfect childhood and life—instead of a Red Rider BB gun, a young boy carries around a pillowcase full of explosives with which to battle Nazis.”
– IndieReader
“At once a love letter to family and an examination of the tension between carefree and careless youth and regretful middle age, this charming collection of stories is full of heart and humor and speaks not only of the lives of its characters but the lives of Eastern European immigrants in America, and their children, what their new country made possible and what it delimited. Each story opens a window into a defining moment in a character’s life, and together these moments make up a picture of American lives and immigrant traditions.”
– Christian Livermore, author of We Are Not OK
“The stories of Jeffrey M. Feingold’s The Black Hole Pastrami are written with an uncommonly deft touch. Feingold knows just when to nudge readers with a metaphorical elbow and when to swing the figurative hammer. These stories are brief but not underdeveloped. Complex but not complicated. Sensitive but not sentimental. Literary but not conventional. Ironic but not sarcastic. Humorous but not jokey. Secretive but not obscure. Character-driven but not plot-impaired. Unpredictable but not random. Feingold pulls off his storytelling balancing act like a tightrope walker who lets us delight in the ultimate performance while barely noticing the years of practice.”
– John Sheirer, author of Stumbling Through Adulthood: Linked Stories
Five star review
– Reader’s Favorite
“Feingold’s writing is part whimsy, part serious reflection, all tied together with humor. I think you’ll enjoy this collection!”
– Donald H. Harrison, Editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World
There is No Death in Finding Nemo
Seemingly simple lives are full of surprises in this collection of short stories.
Music student Dakota, in the opening title story, ignores her sister’s warning about her too-fast relationship. She moves in with Zayden, a real estate developer who certainly seems like an ambitious, responsible older man, after just a few dates. Things change drastically after Dakota unearths what’s hiding in her boyfriend’s home office. Similarly, in “Avram’s Miracle,” hopeful new business partners tour the world’s biggest matzah bakery, which is in Cincinnati. They’re gunning for “worldwide matzah domination” but are unexpectedly taken aback by apprentice baker Avram’s invention. This impressive device may be able to feed masses for free, but is that really what these food industrialists want? Many readers will relate to the lives of those in the seven tales herein: an aging man pining for youth in “The Mirror” and a woman long denying her own very real mental condition in“The Loneliest Number.”Still, surreal moments intermittently crop up. In “The Box,” for example, a stranger hands the titular item to art professor Francine, who’s sitting alone at a restaurant. “For happiness,” the nameless woman tells her before quickly departing. The wooden box’s glass top periodically glows with pictures of people with whom Francine has recently conversed, but she’s not immediately clear why it does so. This story, like the others, showcases the effects of unpredictable happenings on everyday lives.
Prizes/Awards/Nominations
• Five-star rating from Readers’ Favorite in 2023
Praise
“…Poignant, frequently hilarious, and almost always surreal … it is hard not to be charmed by this collection … stories focused on gifted individuals – from intellectuals and doctors to classically trained musicians. Despite their knowledge or brilliance, these characters deal with the same problems as everyone else: loneliness, low self-esteem, or the vagaries of old age. Frequently, there is a surreal twist to a story. What makes them great is their nebulous nature. Sometimes they are real. At other times, they exist solely in the protagonist’s mind. This makes the stories delightfully unpredictable. The author does a great job writing tales that are funny and emotionally engaging.”
– IndieReader
“Many readers will relate to the lives of those in the seven tales herein: an aging man pining for youth in “The Mirror” and a woman long denying her own very real mental condition in “The Loneliest Number.” Still, surreal moments intermittently crop up. In “The Box,” for example, a stranger hands the titular item to art professor Francine, who’s sitting alone at a restaurant. “For happiness,” the nameless woman tells her before quickly departing. The wooden box’s glass top periodically glows with pictures of people with whom Francine has recently conversed, but she’s not immediately clear why it does so. This story, like the others, showcases the effects of unpredictable happenings on everyday lives. Feingold develops a series of sublime characters … profound tales featuring colorful imagery and accessible characters.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“Magic realism flickers about in Jeffrey M. Feingold’s superb short story collection There Is No Death in Finding Nemo. Witness a box gifted to a woman by “a sylphlike stranger” that emits a strange blue glow; a wheat-making machine that can end world starvation; an aging, bloated dermatologist who looks in his mirror and sees an Adonis figure. Beyond the mystique are seven meaningful works, some with old world airs. In ‘Rich Girl’, David and his Gwen Stefani-singing teen daughter go visit his grandfather Aleksey, a Ukrainian Jew suffering from dementia in a bleak nursing home. Once in the room, Aleksey, reliving not his good years in America, but his trauma as a child hiding from the Cossacks, thinks they’re there to kill him. The contrast of generations – of time passing and things lost – is stunning. “Each generation more American, until there was nothing of the old country left.”
– Frances Park, award-winning author of The Summer My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon
“Atmospheric and intriguing, these short stories hide sinister implications beneath everyday realities … choices are made and promises are broken; unsolicited advice is given; traumatic memories resurface. Still, there are also fleeting moments of joy. The prose is atmospheric throughout the book.”
– Foreword Reviews
Jeffrey M. Feingold is an award-winning writer in Boston. If you would like him to speak at your book club or just want to say hello, drop him a line,