Moses Alone — Jonathan Tel

"Five adventures take the reader of this collection on journeys from Venice, Italy, to Venice, California, to a cheap apartment in Brooklyn, to Manhattan, to New Mexico, and to Jerusalem. In The Book of Moses,"" a successful sculptor finds himself shut out of his own life, unrecognized by those closest to him. In ""Bola de la Fortuna,"" a Hispanic truck driver accused of murder discovers his fate in a crystal ball. In ""The Shabbos Goy from Kaifeng,"" a Chinese immigrant working for Hasidic Jews in New York becomes deeply involved in their life. ""The City That Always Sleeps"" presents the reader with a mad couple of actors who have a mysterious hold on a visitor in a mirrored Manhattan apartment. ""Put Not Thy Trust in Chariots"" involves a bank teller in Jerusalem who loans out his car to an Arab woman. These novellas are part meticulous documentation of the worlds we live in, part fabulous feats of imagination. On every page, Tel''s mastery as a storyteller is on full display."""