Joseph Skibell

This book. Wow! Amazing! I'd never before heard of either this book or the author. I found it a while ago at The Book Thing of Baltimore. It looked interesting so I grabbed it. I'd just finished a light, funny book so I was in the mood for reading something deeper. Deeper it was. It starts in wartime Poland in which an entire community of Jews are executed and left dead in a giant pit. One of the Jews starts moving and rattles to life. Or is it life? No, it seems he's still dead, but he has the ability to scramble out of the pit and move around. His first stop is the house that used to belong to him and his family. There he finds a Polish family so he moves in unseen (as he must be a ghost? Right? Or not?) and lives among this family.

This, I soon discover is a truly horrifying and imaginative Holocaust novel. It turns into a fable (or maybe not?). In any case, it is totally different from any other wartime novel I have ever read.

One of the characters I loved from this book was the Rebbe...who became a crow! His idea was to take all of the Jews who were able to come back from the dead to The World to Come (that is, if there is/was/will be such a place. Who knows?)

I'd rather not give away the rest of this story. Should you usually opt out of reading Holocaust literature, you might want to give this book a try as it's not violent and is extremely creative.… (altro)

This is a startling Holocaust story. Right from the beginning the language grips you and grips you hard. Chaim Skibelski, a 60 year old Polish man, is shot along with hundreds of fellow Jews. He has been left to bleed out in a stinking heap. Murder doesn't turn out to be very peaceful for Chaim. As a ghost-like entity caught between Life and The World to Come, he is condemned to roam with his former rabbi-turned-talking-crow, Rebbe. Together they are in an alternate afterlife trying to find purpose. That is the burning question. Why were they left behind? When Skibelski returns to his small Polish village he finds it overrun with non-Jews. They have moved into his house dragging their prejudices behind them.
Dear readers beware: while Skibell's writing sometimes evokes magical imagery, the time frame is dark and tragic so definitely expect violence, destruction and decay. It is at once gory and gorgeous. The worms crawl in. The worms crawl out. Skibelski continuously bleeds from the bullet holes. His face is half missing. Corpses and his family and friends rot and stink and fall apart like a zombie movie. While listening to this on cd I was taken aback when Skibelski started to bleed from his anus. Fear not, dear readers. You get used to it. You will even learn to laugh at it.
In all honesty, I could see this as a Tim Burton film. There is sex and even humor amid the putrid. One of my favorite scenes was when Skibelski comes across a decapitated German soldier trying to kill him again. Yes, you read that right. Skibelski kicks the soldier's head down a hill all the while arguing with the soldier about why he doesn't need to die again. The dialogue is to die for (pun totally intended).… (altro)