A rich and riveting work that marries centuries-old folklore to 21st-century queer literary fiction, CITY OF LAUGHTER spans four generations of Jewish women who are bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years
CITY OF LAUGHTER
by Temim Fruchter
Grove Press, Spring 2023
The exciting debut of a Rona Jaffe Award winner, CITY OF LAUGHTER is a book for the reader of Orlando, Jeanette Winterson, Andrea Lawlor, and the dog-eared Bashevis Singer paperback she still returns to after her first gay kiss. It tangles beautifully with Jewish spirituality and generational silence, with a history of displacement and a present life half-lived for fear of invoking ancestral judgment—and young queer people have a way of upsetting the familial applecart…
Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter, and as this story opens an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make the bride and groom laugh on their wedding day, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger—bringing the laughter that the people of Ropshitz desperately need.
In the present day, Shiva Margolin, a young woman named for a mourning rite, is a graduate student in Jewish folklore getting over the heartbreak of her first big queer love amid mourning the death of her beloved father. She struggles to connect with her mother, who harbors secrets and barriers that Shiva can’t break. When the opportunity arises for her to visit Poland on a half-formed research trip, she takes it; she’s interested in her mysterious matriarchal line, in particular Mira Wollman, the great-grandmother about whom no one speaks, and who left a piece of herself behind in Poland when she emigrated. But as in most folklore, the answers to Shiva’s questions won’t come so easily. Zigzagging between our known universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, CITY OF LAUGHTER is epic and sharply intimate, both fantastical and hyperreal.
Temim Fruchter was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish household, and her faith in communal experience and the spirit world remains central to her identity; this novel was inspired by her own great-grandmother, who was born in Ropshitz. Temim holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland, and was previously a founding member and drummer for The Shondes, a feminist punk band. She has received fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Vermont Studio Center, first prize in short fiction from both American Literary Review and New South, the 2020 Jane Hoppen Residency, and a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award. She lives in Brooklyn.
Nightmares are creeping through the city of dreams
Book 2: THE LIAR’S KNOT
The Muungano empire strived and struggled to form a utopia when they split away from old earth. Freeing themselves from the endless wars and oppression of their home planet in order to shape their own futures and create a far-reaching coalition of city-states that stretched from Earth and Mars to Titan. With the wisdom of their ancestors, the leadership of their elders, the power and vision of their scientists and warriors they charted a course to a better future. But the old powers could not allow them to thrive and have now set in motion new plots to destroy all that they’ve built. In the fire to come they will face down their greatest struggle yet. Amachi Adisa and other young leaders will contend with each other for the power to galvanize their people and chart the next course for the empire. Fela Buhari and her elite unit will take the fight to regions not seen by human eyes, but no training will be enough to bring them all home. Stacia Chikeke, captain of the starship 
Penelope Schleeman, a consistently broke Connecticut high school teacher, is as surprised as anyone when her sensitive debut novel, 
Father: Joshua understands the strict rules of time travel: only observe, things cannot be changed. But things are changing quickly for him. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes to attend university in London and leave the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong behind, he finds the courage to take it. From there, he feels it: this is where life begins. Stepping on that plane is the first decision that will have ramifications for generations to come.