April Fool’s

My apologies to anyone who was taken in.

There are a few clues dropped throughout the review. Stein & Day, the publisher of Rosenzweig’s Panties, filed for bankruptcy in 1987. The name of Rabbi Rosenzweig’s synagogue, Temple Maaseh Kundes, means Temple Practical Joke.

Reviewers in 1964 could not have compared Markfield to Chaim Potok, because Potok did not publish The Chosen, his first novel, until three years later.

And so far from being his best friend, Alfred Kazin was Markfield’s sworn enemy. It was Kazin’s damning review of Teitlebaum’s Window that Markfield complained about, saying that “by any kind of moral or ethical principle [Kazin] should have turned it down.”