Tova Reich — Camp Jeff - with Judith Plotz

Watch author Tova Reich's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

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Somewhere in the Catskills there's a camp, it's called Camp Jeff. The place is named for Jeffrey Epstein, not that Jeffrey Epstein, this is the good Jeffrey Epstein, a benefactor who wants his name on the building, though the bad one's not entirely irrelevant to this story. Tova Reich's newest novel, on the heels of her award-winning Mother India is a raucous and biting tale of a reeducation camp for alleged sex offenders. Reich's verbal blade is sharp and she slashes with it, but not without the sensitivity that such incisiveness requires. Camp Jeff is a work in Reich's signature satirical mode, an unhindered indictment of both #MeToo and therapeutic culture, and at the same time is also a deeply considered work of psychological portraiture and an examination of love, faith, and affection in American culture.

Tova Reich is the author of the novels Mara, Master of the Return, The Jewish War, My Holocaust, and One Hundred Philistine Foreskins. Her most recent novel, Mother India (2018) was longlisted for the South Asian Literature Prize and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Her stories have appeared in the Atlantic, Harper's, Ploughshares, and in her collection The House of Love and Prayer (Seven Stories, 2023). She lives on the fringe of Washington DC.

Judith Plotz is Professor Emeritus of English at George Washington University where she taught for almost fifty years, chaired the English Department, and served as Director of the Humanities Program. Her specialties were Romanticism, Nineteenth-Century Humanities, Indian Postcolonial Literature and Children’s Literature. She also taught Jewish-American Literature, Critical Theory, World War I Literature, and “How to Read a Poem”. Since retirement she has taught a range of courses in the local AU OLLI program including one on Italian Jewish Writers. Among her publications are Romanticism and the Vocation of Childhood, an edition of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories for Penguin, and scores of articles on childhood, literature and society including "Tagore in the Warsaw Ghetto: Korczak's Production of the Post Office."

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.

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