The Man Who Loved his Wife

The  Man  Who  Loved  His  Wife is  a  book  of  short  stories  written  by  Jennifer  Ann  Moses.  Short stories  are  a  little harder to write than a novel. The author must capture the reader’s attention quickly,  keep  their  attention  while  building  the  plot  of  the  story,  then  reach  a  conclusion  in  a limited  amount  of  time  and  pages.  Enticing  the  reader,  making  them  feel  emotions  for  the characters and stay engaged with the storyline is something that Moses does very well throughout this book.Each of the stories uses a dark comedic style to show the real lives of Jewish people living in many locations; New Jersey, Israel and the southern United States. Stories of immigrants and survivors. The stories grab the reader, pulling them into the character’s lives and end leaving the reader with an uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty of what happens next in the protagonist's life. Adolescent love, marriage and infidelity, true love are all scrutinized. Jewish rituals and customs are explored through stories of funerals and sitting shiva. A Jewish family on Sabbatical in England travels around Europe. The mother has been diagnosed with cancer. She wants to experience as much as possible before she cannot travel anymore. When the family encounters a German man, she convinces him to give heryoung son his socks because her son’s socks are wet. Her husband, father of the young boy, is mortified and cannot believe she did that. Here the story explores subjects of family dynamics, a reaction to a cancer diagnosis and the  German,  Jewish  interaction.  Each  short  story  integrates  multiple  challenges,  similar  to  a person’s actual everyday existence. This story is titled, “The Story of My Socks.”A family’s experience  during the Holocaust is presented in the way an elderly man assuages his guilt  by  connecting with his dog. In the opening story, “The Uncircumcised,” Felder, now an elderly  man  was  able  to  escape  death  during  the  Holocaust  because  his  parents  never  had  him circumcised.  Now  his  adult  daughter  has  brought  him  a  dog  to  keep  him  company  in  his one-bedroom apartment.  He  renames  the  dog  Esther  after  his  sister  who  died  at  Bergen-Belsen.  

He believes that her spirit has come back to spend time with him through the dog. The dog speaks to him in Yiddish and they tell each other about their experiences during the years they were apart.Family dynamics are presented in all the stories. The reader can either identify with the someone in  the  story  or  as  an  onlooker  may  judge  the  family  members  in  the  stories.  The  relationship between  parents  and  children.Some of the plots are about young children. “The Fire” tells the story of a family that moves to Long Island to a new larger house with a fireplace.  In thiscoming of age tale, the nine-year old son decides to take advantage of the recent fire the familyhad while learning to use the fireplace to attract a girl at his new school. As his imaginative stories grow he embellishes his life at home and eventually the story gets him in a heap of trouble when the police come to school to find out if there is really trouble at home.Annie just wants her mother to die in the next story, “Next of Kin.” Some of the stories explore the relationship between adult children and their elderly parents. Sometimes parents do not know how  to  relate  to  their  children  and  as  they  all  age,  the  relations  are  strained.  But  watching  your spouse or parent get old and die is always difficult. Annie’s mother does not recognize her anymore even though Annie does not think they had a good relationship even when she was growing up.  Her mother was stubborn and difficult. Now she doesn’t know who she is and sometimes thinks she is a witch.  Annie is also dealing with her own health issues and feels the weight of life pressing in.  Her  husband  brings  out  the  picture  albums, reminding  Annie that  as  they  are aging, he  also doesn’t remember much from their children’s childhoods. Annie realizes it's true,  she does  not remember  the  feel  of  a  baby,  what  it  was  like  to  nurse  or  kiss  a  child  goodnight.  It  is  hard  to remember what your children wore to school or their prom or on their wedding day.In the title story, “The Man Who Loved His Wife,” Martin is so in love with his wife that when she is dying she asks him to give her a Christian burial. Even though she is Jewish, she thinks in the weeks before she dies that Jesus came to her and she has accepted him as her personal savior. To soothe his angry in-laws, he arranges to have both a Rabbi and a minister perform the funeral. Because, Martin said, “I loved her more than I loved my own life.”Thirteen stories in all, which in the Jewish religion is a lucky number, but in other situations can have a sinister connotation. Difficult topics dealt with in unusual dark humorous ways that leaves the reader unsettled. The range of emotions these stories bring out for the reader are like a roller coaster ride.