Tsipi Keller

The setting for Tsipi Keller's new novel, Nadja on Nadja, is New York City-its neighborhoods, its streets, its people-where "humanity, as if spellbound, is approaching the end of the millennium." Working for a living, Nadja, a girl-woman in her thirties, doesn't delude herself. Corporations, she knows, are dictatorships comprised of many low-level tyrants; she must either subjugate herself, or suffer the consequences. In the words of author Bruce Benderson: "Yet another novelistic feat by Tsipi Keller who tackles the enigmatic social transactions that make us part of the human collective without our ever being able to breach the isolation of the self. Working for a man she detests, Nadja, like a thief, writes a novel on the sly, while contending with other deceptions in her life. Like the rest of us, she is two people: that recognizable and functional social being we show to everyone; and a second self, the intuitive, discerning side of Nadja, delving into a secluded world of true vision." Praise for Tsipi Keller's Previous Novels A Bahamian vacation turns into a nightmarish dreamworld in Tsipi Keller's smart, sly Jackpot. ...] Keller expertly charts Maggie's transformation in this accomplished and oddly gripping novel. Publishers Weekly This marvelously engaging and pleasurable novel is like a cross between watching a sly Eric Rohmer film about the spiritual crisis of vacation and reading a Jean Rhys interior monologue of a woman in extremis. ...] A wickedly readable, psychologically astute and drolly knowing fiction. Phillip Lopate This opaque yet beguiling novel showcases the work of a talented and original writer. Publishers Weekly In her new trilogy, Tsipi Keller is revealed as a superlative psychological novelist. Joshua Cohen About the AuthorNovelist and translator and the author of thirteen books, Tsipi Keller is the recipient of several literary awards, including New York Foundation for the Arts grants, and National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships. Her work has been compared to the work of Jean Rhys, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Patricia Highsmith, and others.

Praise for the Author's Work: "Tsipi Keller has taken us into a writer's very being. It is hard work and all-consuming... This is a provocative story that stays with the reader." -Jewish Book Council on The Prophet of Tenth Street"Poet and novelist Keller handles this poignant tale with the deftness of a writer who has struggled alongside her characters." -Publishers Weekly on The Prophet of Tenth Street"This marvelously engaging and pleasurable novel is like a cross between watching a sly Eric Rohmer film about the spiritual crisis of vacation and reading a Jean Rhys interior monologue of a woman in extremis... A wickedly readable, psychologically astute and drolly knowing fiction." -Phillip Lopate, Author of The Glorious American Essay, on Jackpot"Keller expertly charts Maggie's transformation in this accomplished and oddly gripping novel." -Publishers Weekly on Jackpot

Annette, soon to turn thirty, has been transplanted from New York City to a small college town where her husband has been hired to teach rich girls "the basic tenets of History and Culture." The girls have arrived from all over the country with their horses, and Annette wonders how the seemingly spoiled girls manage their busy daily schedules, but they do, they seem to thrive in the fresh air of intellectual and physical pursuits, while Annette, not much older than the girls, feels she has become something she never imagined was possible. One morning, reaching for the notebook where she writes down emergency numbers and To Do lists, Annette, as if compelled, begins to write two diaries, one she titles Squabble Diary, and the other, Love Diary, or, more precisely, Sex Diary, in which she will dutifully record the times her husband (whom she names "Monsieur") deigns to acknowledge her and her needs. At some point, the two diaries become one, and what began as an exercise in futility, and as an uncertainty--will she keep at it--becomes a habit, and "this notebook is filled with words, feelings, stories, historical events, and me." Back in New York and on her own, Annette, adjusting to her new situation, summons the Arabic proverb: yom asal, yom basal--one day honey, one day onion--telling herself she must be strong and keep in mind E. Graham Howe's wise advice: "It is better, if we can, to stand alone and to feel quite normal about our abnormality."