- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow; illustrated edition edition (10 Oct 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0688151809
- ISBN-13: 978-0688151805
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16.3 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,515,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Two years ago, Stephen J. Dubner wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine called "Choosing My Religion". It became one of the most widely discussed articles in the magazine's history. Turbulent Souls, the book that grew out of that article, is an intimate memoir of a man in search of a Jewish heritage he never knew he had. It is also a loving portrait of his parents.
Stephen Dubner's family was as Catholic as they come. His devout parents attended mass at every opportunity and named their eight children after saints. Stephen, the youngest child, became an altar boy, studied the catechism, and learned the traditional rituals of the Church -- never suspecting that the religion he embraced was not his by blood.
Turbulent Souls is Dubner's personal account of his family's tumultuous journey from Judaism to Catholicism -- and in his own case, back to Judaism -- and the effects, some tragic, some comic, of those spiritual transformations. His parents were Jews, born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents, but -- independent of each other and, indeed, before they met -- each converted to Christianity, only to be shunned by their families. After their marriage, they closed the door on Judaism so firmly that their children had no inkling that their background was far different from what it seemed: They didn't know, for instance, that their mother had a first cousin named Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed for treason in one of the most controversial cases of the cold war era.
Stephen Dubner's is a story about discovery: of relatives he never knew existed, of family history he'd never learned, and of a faith he'd never thought of as his own and, in fact, knew nothing about. It's afascinating, thoughtful, and thought-provoking exploration of a subject of intense interest to spiritually minded men and women everywhere.
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First Sentence
"MY mother tells me that, even as a little girl in Brooklyn, she had a stubborn streak." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
"MY mother tells me that, even as a little girl in Brooklyn, she had a stubborn streak." Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a beautifully written book. It starts off rather unpromisingly and the first chapters are almost unreadable as the ancestors are introduced name-after-name. However, as the author moves forward to describe his parents lives, then his own life, then on to a re-understanding of his parents lives, these descriptions become deeper and deeper and the lives more interwoven. It is very nicely crafted and highly recommended.
Format:Hardcover
Laced with humor and wit, this professionally written memoir of a spiritual journey back to dormant but familiar roots is an inspiration to all who have explored or crossed the great, absurd, and fascinating religious divide that, like the jetty at a beach I once visited in New Bedford, Massachusetts, separates Jew from Christian, Protestant from Catholic, Montagu from Capulet. If, as Bob Jones professes to do, you embrace the belief that those misguided or ignorant souls who fail to share your particular apocalyptic vision are doomed to damnation, you won't like this book, which documents the plurality and endorses the validity of the many and varied ways in which God speaks to each of us and in which we severally commune with God.
Format:Hardcover
The youngest child of a large, devout Catholic family comes to terms with the Jewish identity each of his parents rejected, even as Jews were experiencing the unchosen desecration of WW2. Dubner offers respectful, if perhaps inevitably inconclusive, portraits of two individuals who seemed surprisingly unrebellious in nature (despite the devastating familial impact of their conversions)but rather pilgrims on a deeply personal spiritual quest somehow answered by Catholocism. Despite the spiritual fullfillment obtained by his parents, Stephen seemed destined to fill the yawning void created by their disowned past. An easy read that somehow causes one to consider one's own choices, past and future, and those of the generation before us....
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