Chenia Arnow is a Russian-Jewish immigrant in 1950s New York, a sharp-witted, Betty Grable look-alike whose accent and Old-World superstitions mask untapped passions and intellectual curiosity. Her husband Ruben is a handsome philanderer who has a k...
Charged with the mystery of childhood, with curiosity and daring, confusion and fear, the eleven interrelated stories in "Useful Gifts" explore what Ruthie knows. The youngest child of profoundly deaf parents living in Manhattan in the 1940s and 1...