| As featured in the Rockaway Wave https://www.rockawaytimes.com/the-lighthouse-welcomes-author-seth-bornstein/ |
| Over 1,300 copies sold! A hard copy edition of Swimming to Jerusalem is now available! Swimming to Jerusalem will be featured in the National Jewish Book Council’s Author’s Program later this year – more information to come! |
Swimming to Jerusalem is available online and at Kew & Willow Books, 81-63 Lefferts Blvd., Kew Gardens, NY, LIC Book Culture, 29-06 Jackson Ave., LIC, NY; Queens World’s Bookshop, 34-06 73rd St., Jackson Heights; The Corner Bookshop, 1313 Madison Ave (E. 93 St), New York, NY
From Kirkus Reviews –
“A bighearted novel about the past’s refusal to recede”
In Bornstein’s debut novel, an American Jew’s story unfolds simultaneously across two timelines.
Born in Paris to Jews from Poland and Morocco and raised in both Israel and Brooklyn, the polyglot Bram Goodman represents the whole of the Diaspora. In 1983, Bram, recently discharged from the Israeli Defense Force and fresh from a summer in Côte d’Azur teaching wealthy children to swim, has just returned to his semi-hometown of New York City. He’s followed a girl there: Liz Ellis, an idealistic Columbia Law grad (and gentile) from Arizona who’s just taken a job at a legal nonprofit. Falling in love with Liz helps distract Bram from the fact that he hasn’t yet grappled with the death of his Israeli cousin, Yoni, who died by suicide following their service in the Lebanon War. In 2015, 32 years later, a middle-aged Bram occupies an entirely different position in life. He and Liz are living in Queens with three kids and a pair of ornery upstairs tenants. Bram serves as the executive director of The Linden Hills Community House, located in a mostly Black neighborhood of south Brooklyn. His progressive 17-year-old daughter, Jenna, is critical of all things Israel, while his youngest, Theo, is preparing to undergo his bar mitzvah. The specter of a Trump presidency hangs in the air, as does the ghost of Yoni, whose death—and what it means—Bram still hasn’t fully worked out. Tied up in Bram’s grief is a never-realized dream Yoni had for the two of them to swim the English Channel (“A two-way, back and forth,” he explains. “We’d be the first Israeli cousins to do so”). The novel alternates between the two timelines, which mirror and inform each other in unexpected ways, moving Bram (and the reader) inevitably back to Israel.
The author has an observant eye, summoning both eras of New York in brilliant detail and persuasively depicting the same characters at very different times of life. The dialogue is particularly sharp and laden with dark humor, as when Bram dismisses Theo’s worry that any Jews in New York would vote for Donald Trump: “ ‘Dylan Mandelbaum told me his father thinks Trump would be good for Israel.’ ‘Dylan Mandelbaum’s father would probably go to Dr. Mengele for a second opinion.’ ” At one point Bram praises Philip Roth, and Bram’s preoccupations—how to be both an Israeli Jew and a secular American progressive with a shiksa wife—feel very much of the generation raised on Roth’s novels. It’s possible that younger readers will not find these concerns quite so compelling. There are some pacing issues as well: The book is long at 470 pages, and its plot accumulates more than unfurls. Even so, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, the novel is a pleasure to read. At all times, the writing displays a keen wit and a deep sense of history. It’s a great novel of New York in the Trump era and a tender look at the way the progression of time makes immigrants of us all. A bighearted novel about the past’s refusal to recede.
From Amazon reviews – https://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Jerusalem-Novel-Seth-Bornstein/dp/B0C6P8H6T3#customerReviews
The writing style from this author is spot on in keeping the reader wanting more! I have met and now know all of these characters, instead of using the usual excessive language (which I tend to skim through) it was almost as if I sat down with each one and we shared our lives or at times I was a close spectator to the family gatherings. Well done Mr. Bornstein please don’t let this be your last novel I so enjoy reading and it’s been challenging to find something of your caliber. – Eric Andrew
What a wonderful book! Bram is so tough, tender, loyal, smart .. so witty, funny and irreverent. I loved the way the story unfolded. Looking
back to his childhood and his relationship with his cousin Yoni and his brother Gerry. His time in Israel, finding his partner in life Liz, in Paris where he had lived. Loved all his French expressions woven into the narrative. The writing is so colorful…. But the devil-may-care attitude hid a sadness and guilt, that he eventually was able to tackle with the help of Liz and their 3 children. It was a hard book to put down…I’m ready to
to read and savor the words again. -Dot M.
YOU WON’T PUT IT DOWN! SUCH AN INSPIRING STORY – FAMILY – LAUGHTER – HEART WARMING
This is an inspiring heartfelt story that you just want to keep reading even after the last page. It has every emotion in it sprinkled with geography, history, family, tears, lots of laughter, and great character development. And you learn a few words in other languages too! I loved it. Waiting for the movie and the sequel. A great read!!! Enjoy it! -Val LB
This book is over 400 pages but I read it within a week. The story flows so well. It has interesting characters. It’s a good story about family and their dynamics. I really enjoyed reading this book. I even laughed out loud a few times. I highly recommend it! – Samantha F
I’m a fairly avid reader, but many books leave me a bit cold because the characters seem less than likeable or less than genuine. By contrast, every character in “Swimming to Jerusalem “ is more believable than the next. Bram, the protagonist, is complicated and difficult, but also wonderful in so many ways that it’s impossible to dislike him, in my opinion. Passion, humor, friendship, family – all are combined in this charming book. I really hope this is the only the first of many novels from this author. Seth Bornstein has a great talent for storytelling! -Deirdre A.
“Swimming to Jerusalem” is a wonderful read; I couldn’t put it down. The characters are well-developed and so relatable. There were times I laughed out loud and parts where my tears flowed. If you enjoy journeys – both personal growth and geographical – this book is a must. -Sheila S.
From Facebook posts –
Finished Seth’s inspired debut novel! Fitzgerald’s American classic ends with “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.” Bornstein’s more complex contemporary novel ends with an original song (that, in my mind, goes to the tune of the spiritual “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”), “I can swim myself to shore, hal-le -lu-jah. I can swim myself to shore, hal-le-lu-jah. Though the river is deep and wide, I am strong and swiftly glide, hal-le-lu-jah. Cause I’m swimming to my home on the other side, hal-le-lu-lu-lah.” This is the post WWII NYC (by way of France and Israel) immigrant’s Bram Goodman, American quest, as a bookend to Fitzgerald’s post WWI soldier’s, Jay Gatsby, American dream! Gatsby only learns to code switch between classes and not very well. Bram is a polyglot and a global citizen. Bornstein ends his novel with love and a curated community, a much more hopeful perspective than Fitzgerald’s on the US. Today I’m lending it to a former Israeli soldier who wants to borrow it for his vacation in Maine. When (not if) you read Seth’s book, you’ll see how happy I am to have him borrow it. -Karen N.
A radio interview with Seth from The Secret 2 My Success
A webcast with Seth discussing Greenwich Village – where Bram and Liz live until their move to the Terraces in Queens
Hear Seth discuss going to school and living in Greenwich Village in the 1970s through 90s and where he and Diane and their daughters Kerry and Madeline lived. In Swimming to Jerusalem, Grove Street in the Village is the setting for Liz’s apartment in New York City that Bram moved into and where they lived before moving to the Terraces in Queens.
Swimming to Jerusalem 