That Is How It Is – another impressive translation by Harvey Fink – offers more than fifty short pieces by Moishe Nadir, almost entirely about America – “a land where people do not go for strolls, where no one drinks wine.” He wrote for the New York Yiddish press, in daily newspapers and popular humour magazines. Nadir’s stories will enter your consciousness with a gentle knock, seduce you with their eloquence and wry observations, and challenge you with a minefield of sardonic humor. “Nadir’s best stories acknowledge that a freer life might be practically preferable, but theologically barren; that there can be no ecstasy in a nation where ecstasies can be mass-produced; and that only kitsch can comfort when the communal is usurped by capitalism, and by democratic enfranchisement…” (Joshua Cohen, June 25, 2009, Tablet Magazine)
