Rescue Press

86 pages, $14

Review by Jonathan Russell Clark

There are so many wonderful things about Jonathan Blum’s Last Word. Blum’s narrative takes us into an upper-class Jewish private school called Traubman V. Goldfarb. The narrator is Dr. Kip Langer, a facial reconstruction surgeon, whose son (from a previous marriage) and daughters attend the school. When someone hacks into the school’s network and adds strange and offensive comments to all the report cards, Dr. Langer, his family, and the entire school are thrown into upheaval.

This is a world Blum knows intimately, as evidenced by details sprinkled throughout, like the “zither-shaped concrete bench whose seat spells Shalom Yeladim in a mosaic of brilliant-colored stone flecks,” or the “three-part blue-framed proverb” on the wall of a conference room, “If I Am Not For Myself, Who Am I For? If I Am Only For Myself, Who Will Be For Me? If Not Now, When?” I know Blum has seen these things. Continue reading →