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Satan in Goray, Isaac Bashevis Singer (1955)

The first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Yiddish author

by
Rachel Shukert
September 17, 2013

A false Messiah, secret satanic sex rituals, and frenzied orgiastic worship—this is not your grandmother’s shtetl (but maybe it’s your great-, great-, great-, great-, great-, you get the idea, grandmother’s). Isaac Bashevis Singer’s dark folkloric masterpiece proves that medieval Jews could be every bit as macabre and erotic as medieval Christians. If you don’t think that’s a selling point, then look, at least it’s a nice change.

Rachel Shukert is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great,and the novel Starstruck. She is the creator of the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club, and a writer on such series as GLOW and Supergirl. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.