Product Description

Most of us have grappled with the role of religion in our lives and have strived to reconcile our temporal desires with the soul's higher yearnings. Colin Stone, the hero of Cameron Stracher's debut novel, The Laws of Return experiences such a struggle as a third-generation American and secular Jew who lives in a world cast loose from spiritual moorings.

Colin grows up in the wealthy suburbs of New York, where he attends Hebrew school and has a Bar Mitzvah but is never truly touched by his religion. Embarking on a personal journey toward faith, he first finds himself in the Protestant hills of western Massachusetts. Later his search takes him to the hallowed halls of Harvard Law School and finally on an odyssey to the Arctic Circle.

But what Colin seeks turns out to be closer to home. He falls in love with a woman who celebrates the irrational, including doing everything in counts of threes. Ultimately, in a final confrontation with an unrepentant bigot, Colin discovers a truth that the laws of science and society cannot explain.

The Laws of Return brings home the ambivalence and confusion many of us have experienced regarding how religion and spirituality fit into our lives. As Meg Wolitzer puts it, "The author writes wonderfully about faith and identity, and readers will be reminded of Philip Roth's early work, as well as delighted by Cameron Stracher's own fresh and uncompromising vision."

Written with wry wit and humor, Laws of Return marks Cameron Stracher's impressive debut.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2674119 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 245 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The existential angst of assimilated Jews in America is the theme of Stracher's fiercely honest, caustically funny and ironic first novel. Blond, blue-eyed Colin Stone ("my name sounds like an intestinal disorder") grows up in suburbia, the grandson of Holocaust-haunted, Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants and the son of a scientist father and a mother who pursues a Ph.D in comparative literature while raising three children. Determined to join the American melting pot, Colin's parents have shed their religion and traditions, unwittingly casting their children into a spiritual void. At the same time, they send conflicting messages: to assuage their guilt, Colin is forced to attend Hebrew school to prepare for a bar mitzvah. Obsessed by the sense of a tragic history but denying that he is part of it, Colin develops friendships with other spiritual and cultural misfits, participating in encounters that often verge on the farcical but capture the tension of secular Jews walking the tightrope between assimilation and isolation. Stracher has a sharp, irreverent eye for the hypocrisies and contradictions of his protagonist's life, which he describes in prose that snaps with staccato one-liners and resonates with insight. He follows Colin's belated coming of age through a series of unfortunate relationships with unattainable women (a set piece on Colin's first date is hilarious), college in New England (transparently Amherst) and Harvard Law School, followed by virtual bondage in a white-shoe Manhattan law firm where Colin hides his religious background from the anti-Semitic boss. It's not until his endearingly neurotic non-Jewish girlfriend accuses him of being "filled with self-hatred" that Colin can move from passivity to affirmation, cast off his ambiguous identity and declare that he is a Jew. In Colin's insistently mocking voice, Stracher writes first-class social comedy. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate this impressive debut novel, but it helps. Rich in religious allusion and Hebrew phraseology, Stracher's foray into territory mapped out by Philip Roth and Woody Allen captures the American Jewish experience with warmth and savage wit. Colin Stone, a secular Jew in search of his lost faith, traverses each of the life stages outlined in the Bible: "bondage under a cruel master, a hasty freedom, worship of false idols, forty years of wandering, the Promised Land." It's a delightful tale and deeply philosophical, peopled with quirky characters (like the yarmulke-wearing childhood friend of Colin whose hero happens to be Hitler), and Stracher tells it in a spare and original style. Highly recommended.?David Sowd, formerly with Stark Cty. Dist. Lib., Canton, Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This chronology of the life and spiritual awakening of one Colin Stone begins, literally enough, in the crib, just after his bris. We then follow Colin through his stoned adolescence, Ivy League college years, and intense stay at Harvard Law School. He is drawn to friends who are passionate and committed--his openly gay roommate Dirk, the fervid religious scholar Joshua--but he himself is ambivalent at best about tying himself to anyone or anything. When he allows himself to be talked into taking a grueling but high-paying job at a prestigious law firm, he is finally able to find the courage to acknowledge his faith and confront the virulent anti-Semitism of the senior partners. First novelist Stracher has an annoying habit of describing ordinary moments with an abundance of weighty prose that sinks more than a few key scenes. Let's just say it might be a mistake to invoke the whole of Jewish history every time Colin walks through a door. Still, there's no denying the author's enthusiasm for his material or the fact that the yearning for spiritual connection is a hot theme these days. Joanne Wilkinson

Customer Reviews

A VERY MOVING STORY THAT DESERVES NOTICE!
THE LAWS OF RETURN is a beautifully crafted first novel that captures the reader from the first paragraph. Colin Stone, the novel's protagonist, tells the story of his life from infancy to what appears to be his early thirties and the result is a story that is as emotionally powerful as anything I have read in recent years. The author's "minimalist" style and use of the first person and present tense expertly draws the reader into Colin's world; a world filled with uncertainties, anxieties and doubts. I particularly enjoyed the deadpan irony sprinkled throughout and found myself laughing frequently. At the same time, there is an underlying pathos in many of the pages that adds substance to the book and makes it much more than simply a series of humorous vignettes. This lyrical book is intelligently written and I strongly recommend it to everyone

A Wonderful Story
This book was a blast, funny from the first page on through. Yet, it is also a thoughtful and moving story that helps one reflect on questions of assimilation. The writing is very graceful and elegant. I can't praise it enough. D. London.

A story that you will want to finish.
Cast loose from spiritual moorings, a third-generation American and secular Jew, Colin Stonegrows up in the suburbs of New York, attends Hebrew school, is bar-mitzvahed, but never touched by his religion. Written in the first person and present tense, just helps to pull you into the story. Extremely well written and captivating.