Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook244 pages3 hours
Peep Show: A Novel
By Joshua Braff
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
A young man is torn between his Hasidic mother and his father—a Times Square pornographer—in this “smart, funny, heartbreaking novel” (Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You).
David Arbus will be graduating from high school in the spring of 1975. His parents are divorced, and he can join the world of one or the other: embrace his mother’s Hasidic Jewish sect, or go into his father’s line of work, running a burlesque theater in the heart of New York’s Times Square. He decides to join the family business. What else would a healthy seventeen-year-old with an interest in photography do?
From the acclaimed author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, Peep Show is the bittersweet story of a young man split between a mother trying to erase her past and a father struggling to maintain his dignity in a less-than-savory business that is growing edgier by the day. It’s both a “humane, compassionate and very moving” story of a broken family, and an insightful look at the elaborate rituals, assumed names, and fierce loyalties of two secret worlds that strips away the curtains of both (Kirkus Reviews).
“An interfamilial culture clash of epic proportions . . . Braff makes the most of the comic potential inherent in his outlandish premise, but he sees well beyond the laughs. This is a powerful, sensitively told coming-of-age story about the ways in which rigid worldviews extract their pounds of flesh from us all, especially the young.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Haunts long after the final page.” —People
David Arbus will be graduating from high school in the spring of 1975. His parents are divorced, and he can join the world of one or the other: embrace his mother’s Hasidic Jewish sect, or go into his father’s line of work, running a burlesque theater in the heart of New York’s Times Square. He decides to join the family business. What else would a healthy seventeen-year-old with an interest in photography do?
From the acclaimed author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, Peep Show is the bittersweet story of a young man split between a mother trying to erase her past and a father struggling to maintain his dignity in a less-than-savory business that is growing edgier by the day. It’s both a “humane, compassionate and very moving” story of a broken family, and an insightful look at the elaborate rituals, assumed names, and fierce loyalties of two secret worlds that strips away the curtains of both (Kirkus Reviews).
“An interfamilial culture clash of epic proportions . . . Braff makes the most of the comic potential inherent in his outlandish premise, but he sees well beyond the laughs. This is a powerful, sensitively told coming-of-age story about the ways in which rigid worldviews extract their pounds of flesh from us all, especially the young.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Haunts long after the final page.” —People
Unavailable
Author
Joshua Braff
Joshua Braff the author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, lives in California with his wife and two children.
Related to Peep Show
Related ebooks
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuzanne Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wasteland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Homespun Wisdom of Myrtle T. Cribb Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sweet Undoings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Extra Ordinary Life of Frank Derrick, Age 81 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5See Through: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chanukah Guilt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Sex & Suburban Lunacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrass Ankle Blues: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Once More with Feeling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Popular Girl Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr. Mac and Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Stager: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5House of Mirth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOdd Girl Out Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Long Drive Home: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Last Road Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5O My America!: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bad Blood: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHot Mess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGuestlist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Other Half of Me: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaggie & Me: Coming Out and Coming of Age in 1980s Scotland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Awakening Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Opposite of Chance: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Romantic: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Earth and High Heaven Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Skating Party and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Pop: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Historical Fiction For You
Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Hour: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Eve Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden (Original Classic Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hallowe'en Party: Inspiration for the 20th Century Studios Major Motion Picture A Haunting in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House Is on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Euphoria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sold on a Monday: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellow Wife: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I, Claudius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Tent - 20th Anniversary Edition: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clockmaker's Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Journals of Sacajewea: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rules of Magic: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Tender Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girls in the Stilt House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Magic Lessons: The Prequel to Practical Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Woman's Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Magic: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Peep Show
Rating: 3.125 out of 5 stars
3/5
12 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book kept my interest, but was quite poorly written. The people were stereotypes and required no intelligence to portray them. I would not receomment this book to anyone. There are better written books that portray family disintegration; these books portray micj more comples characters. I question Braff's purpose in writing this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5David is on the brink of adulthood and straddling his parents' worlds--his mother has recently converted to Orthodox Judaism and his dad owns and runs a burlesque theatre. The worlds are a little cartoonishly drawn--Mom is completely rigid and inflexible, not allowing David's sister to see their father and sweeping her into the orthodox world as well; Dad is unwilling to update his theater to include peep shows and porn-making that will keep the business profitable. Admirably, Dad's main motivation isn't for keeping the theater afloat but for regaining access to his daughter, whom he misses terribly. David, too, misses his sister and is deeply hurt by his mother's rejection of him (as he won't convert).
Setting the book against a fledgling adult shop makes it easy to say "this person is an unfit parent" while highlighting that the porn shop owner is actually the more caring parent, but such a decision seems lazy. This could have been a stronger novel if Braff had focused on the family dynamic without using the shorthand of "EWWW PORN." - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Peep Show by Joshua Braff was a very quick read that I powered through yesterday. Even though it moved quickly and was fairly compelling (what other terrible things could possibly happen to this shipwreck of a family?) it was not an enjoyable read for me. So I slept on it, and woke up knowing exactly why this novel was so unsettling. It was the anger! Has there ever been so much anger displayed by so many dysfunctional characters? Everybody was angry about something--or everything! David, too, was angry about everything in his life, but especially about his desertion by his family. His mother, especially, left him stranded; but his dad in his own way also deserted David by subjecting him to a thoroughly inappropriate lifestyle. Perhaps Debra wasn't angry, but only because she was too complacent to realize she should be angry. She lets the reader do it for her!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Religious beliefs divide a family - it happens. The conflict in this novel, though, is pretty extreme -- on one side, a mother and daughter make the decision to become Orthodox Hasids, without the son - the narrator of the book, who ends up, almost by default, living with his father who is hanging on to a burlesque theater owned by HIS father. Times are tough for burlesque and David's father is "forced" to bring in adult toys and peep shows. So, on one side, two women are adopting the conservative dress and sheitels (brown wigs) and, on the other, women are taking it ALL off in the name of "entertainment". I don't read a LOT of fiction, and if I pick some up, it had better keep my attention - which this book did. I carried it around with me, reading it anytime I had five minutes. David, a budding photographer, captures both extremes of his family on film throughout the book, as he stands in a sort of no man's land -- not wanting to immerse himself in either. Great read!