Elaine recently talked with Goldie Morgentaler about Morgentaler's recent book, Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays by Chava Rosenfarb, April 27, 2021
Interview on The Book of Faith
September 26, 2015
Elaine Kalman Naves interviewed on CTV Montreal. Click to watch the video.
Interview on The Book of Faith
January 9, 2016
Elaine Kalman Naves interviewed on Jewish Digest. Radio centre-ville. Click to listen to the interview.
Pages: 400 pages
Publisher: Linda Leith Publishing
Date: 2015
Purchase Book of Faith at:
• | chapters.indigo.ca | • | amazon.ca (Canada) | • | amazon.com (US) | |
or from your local independent bookseller |
“It was a truism, practically a truth universally acknowledged, that no one knew as much about a person as their lawyer or their accountant. Maybe not even their shrink. But a shul president was also advantageously positioned to obtain some fine insights. Performing the mitzvah of visiting a shiva house, she might bear witness to the most astonishing family meltdowns. Reviewing a report from the membership chair, she had privileged dope on the deadbeats: the members—not necessarily of the ranks of the impoverished—who shamelessly drifted from year to year, mooching off the public weal, without paying their fees.”
Mordecai Richler meets Jane Austen in The Book of Faith.
Faith, Rhoda, and Erica, affectionately known as the Three Graces, are members of a liberal Jewish congregation in contemporary Montreal. Rabbi Nate wants a grand new synagogue; Marty, the congregation’s treasurer, harbours a raunchy secret; and Melly is a hard-nosed Holocaust survivor with an agenda.
Award-winning author Elaine Kalman Naves’s debut novel is a delicious send-up of synagogue politics. It is also a paean to friendship.
"Smart yet tender, funny yet deep, The Book of Faith, is a sly, witty send-up of squabble-filled synagogue politics ...".
– Yona Zeldis McDonough, The Lilith Blog.
"In The Book of Faith, Elaine Kalman Naves is as wise about 21st century synagogue intrigues and middle-age romances as Jane Austen was about early 19th century English drawing rooms. In fact, if Austen were around today—and Jewish, of course—I’m betting this is the kind of novel she’d be writing. Kalman Naves’s story of love and loss, female friendship and hard-earned resilience is fast-paced, heartfelt and sharply observant. The Book of Faith is a serious delight."
– Joel Yanofsky, author of Bad Animals and Mordecai & Me.
"The Book of Faith is an incisive, funny, and moving exploration of the lives of three women – one of them the eponymous Faith – over the course of a tumultuous year and a half of challenges both personal and public. Conveying the particulars of Jewish Montreal with an almost documentary realism, it will speak powerfully to anyone who has tried to integrate their own ethnic and religious heritage into contemporary society."
– Susan Glickman, author of The Tale-Teller and Safe as Houses.
"Jane Austen and Mordecai Richler are not names that suggest an immediate association. But they are the antecedents that the publisher of Elaine Kalman Naves's debut novel invokes to describe the story of three women--known as the Three Graces--who worship at the same Montreal synagogue. Naves, a former literary columnist for the Montreal Gazette, examines friendship among women in the context of faith and religious politics.The documentary-like dissection of contemporary women's lives recalls Austen; the scabrous humour and contemporary Montreal setting suggest Richler."
– Quill & Quire, October 2015.
Interview in Montreal Review of Books by Sarah Fletcher
Read the article
Elaine travelled to Germany to take part in the trial of Oskar Groening. To learn more about her story, read more about it in the following links:
News coverage from Canada:
Montreal Gazette
CBC
The Walrus - Silent Witness
CTV News
News coverage from Germany:
Der Tagesspiegel (May 17, 2015)
Der Tagesspiegel (May 6, 2015)
Frankfurter Rundschau
NDR.de
Die Welt
Elaine was interviewed by Felicia Mihali of Levure littéraire, an international online magazine. Read her full interview here.