by Molly Abramowitz
Interconnected stories of a far-flung family
In Margot Singer’s debut fiction collection, The Pale of Settlement (University of Georgia Press, $24.95), winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, nine connecting stories peel back the history and myths of protagonist Susan Stern and her family: an interconnected net of women and men, Israelis and secular Jews, in places as far-flung as Jerusalem, Manhattan, Haifa, Katmandu, Berlin, the archeological ruins of the Galilee and the checkpoints in Gaza.