Leverett’s John J. Clayton has created the perfect hybrid of the short story the novel in “Minyan,” a group of 10 interwoven tales of people who work and pray together at a synagogue in Brookline.
A minyan is the quorum of 10 people required to worship officially in Judaism. The book revolves around some of the participants in a regular Tuesday-morning prayer session at the synagogue, B’nai Shalom (“Children of Peace”).
Each story is told from the point of view of a different member of the group. The first story, from which the collection derives its title, presents Sam Schulman. Sam is the heart of the weekly gathering.
Divorced and dealing with the recent death of one of his two sons, Sam is caught between new love and old, between grief and life. He must also deal with the angry politics of his surviving son, whom he struggles to understand and help.
Like Sam, most of the other protagonists of the stories find themselves in intersections of family and self, daily life and spirituality, death and forgiveness.
My favorite story might be “O’Malley Recites Kaddish.” Laura O’Malley is a Jewish-Irish hybrid who helps pay her way through school by working as a part-time caregiver for a cantankerous elderly member of the B’nai Shalom congregation.
Doris Kahn lives in a wheelchair. Her physical and psychological pain forces her to lash out at those around her.
Slowly, Laura comes to see the love lurking beneath the surface of her grumpy charge — and begins to help Doris back into the world spiritually even as the older woman gets ready to leave it physically.
Not all of the stories have happy endings. Some of the characters face situations that have no real solution. Nevertheless, all of the stories and their protagonists touch the reader by illustrating the human search for love, connection, and faith.
Just as you didn’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s Rye bread in the classic advertisements for that brand of bread in the 1960s, you don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate the ways in which the characters in “Minyan” try to live their faith.
Discussing the concept of atonement and forgiveness central to the Jewish New Year, John Clayton writes, “Who believes this literally? Maybe only the Orthodox. Yet as myth, communal shaping of our lives, it has great power. It’s not theoretical; it enters our hearts.”
“Minyan” will enter the hearts of readers.
John Clayton will read from and sign copies of “Minyan” on Sunday, Nov. 13, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the World Eye Bookshop in Greenfield.
Tinky Weisblat is the author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook” and “Pulling Taffy.” Visit her website, www.TinkyCooks.com