Peep Show
Buy the Book: Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, IndieBound, KoboPublished by: Algonquin Books
Release Date: 01/06/10
Pages: 266
ISBN13: 978-1565125087
Overview
A teenaged boy and his sister face divorce when their Hasidic mother leaves their aging Peep Show owning father. The sister is given no choice but to join her mother’s sect but the boy, Alex, must ponder his own needs before knowing which way to turn
Praise
“Braff skillfully illuminates the failures and charms of a broken family. That teen longing for adults to act their age haunts long after the final page.”
—People Magazine (4 stars)
“Whether he’s writing about religion, pornography, or the family ruined by both in this smart, funny, heartbreaking novel, Braff does it with authority, wit, and an unflagging compassion for his hopelessly broken characters.”
—Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You
“An interfamilial culture clash of epic proportions. …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)
“An accomplished, thematically complex, but ultimately very relatable piece of writing, a book that convinces us of Braff’s talent and ingenuity. …disarmingly fresh.”
—Spectrum Culture
“Funny…poignant…The comic thrust never detracts from the novel’s intimate peek into a divided family.”
—BookPage
“Braff brings together two very different cultures with sympathy for both. … An intriguing contrast in the struggle to uphold a set of values and the painful necessity of compromise.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Braff draws an interesting parallel between the peep show aspect of David’s father’s theater to the screen drawn across his mother’s Hasidic world.”
—Jewish Book Council
Backstory
My father-in-law told me about a man who was known as the Peep Show King of The Great White Way. He was a shlumpy Jewish guy from Long Island who made an investment in arcades for pinball and ended up knee-deep in the porn and smut-filled environment of Times Square, NY in the 60’s/ 70’s. I was curious to learn about his kids and wife and ended up creating a story about a fractured family where the main argument is over who gets to decide how the kids are raised. Will it be through the Peep Show world of 1970’s Times Square, or will it be through Hasidism?
