For the next few weeks, you will be hearing about girls and sex. \”Oprah,\” \”Leeza,\” \”Charlie Rose,\” The New York Times, even The Jewish Journal — media great and small will focus airwaves and inches on a topic that, while hardly new, rarely gets serious, sustained attention.
The author has managed to pack an awesomely dense amount ofclichés, stale humor and annoyingly cute literary mannerismsonto each page, but the end product is curiously weightless.
Josh Henkin will read from his new book, \”Swimming Across the Hudson,\” Mon., May 12, 7 p.m. at Dutton\’s on San Vivente. Josh Henkin\’s paternal grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi who lived in the United States for 50 years without ever learning to speak English. Still, the author was able to forge a strong connection with the old man, the kind of bond that transcended language and linked Henkin to a people and a past.\n
Remember that great scene in \”Inherit the Wind,\” when Clarence Darrow asks William Jennings Bryan if a book that details rape, incest, slaughter, nudity and sodomy should be banned? The fundamentalist Bryan answers, \”Of course!\” and Darrow, with a flourish, whips out a copy of the Bible and declares, \”Then you must ban this book!\”
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