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Heeding the Call That HauntsTattoo for a Slave By Hortense Calisher

Harcourt, 336 pages, $24.

‘Your grandmother never kept slaves.”…………With these words spoken to a young, naive Hortense Calisher by her father, born the seventh child of eight in 1861 in Richmond, Va., this unusual book opens. A “tattoo” can be a bugle call, a drum roll…Read more

Fatalism and Humor in Israeli FictionUncle Peretz Takes Off: Short Stories By Yaakov Shabtai Translated From the Hebrew by Dalia BiluOverlook Duckworth, 239 pages, $24.95. * * *The Israeli author Yaakov Shabtai, who died in 1981, wrote several morbidly memorable first sentences. “Goldman’s father died on the first of April, whereas Goldman himself committed suicide on…Read more

A Portrait of a Musical Prodigy That Rings TrueThe Song of Names By Norman Lebrecht Anchor, 320 pages, $14. * * *Few writers know more about the dark, sometimes scandalous workings of the music business than Norman Lebrecht, the author of “The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power” (Simon & Schuster, 1991) and the illuminating “Who Killed Classical Music?: Maestros,…Read more

The Liberated AuthorThe Liberated Bride By A.B. Yehoshua Harcourt, 568 pages, $27. * * *From the beginning of his career, the Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua has examined the complex relationship between Israeli Jews and Arabs, most notably in his 1964 novella, “Facing the Forests,” and his early novel, “The Lover,” set in Israel after the l973 war.…Read more

A Short Story Collection Suffused With Jewish Lore and Driven by Unforgettable CharactersAn Hour in Paradise: Stories By Joan Leegant Norton, 223 pages, $23.95. * * *People imagine that as a book critic I read so much that there must be dozens of books I enjoy each year. But the truth is, books about which I am totally enthusiastic appear only every few years. Joan Leegant’s terrific first book of stories, “An Hour in…Read more