I had somehow not realized that this was a Jewish story even though *obviously* it is. And also it says something about the state of Jewish fiction that I was excited for a book that talked about a different tragedy than the Holocaust for a change

—instead we get the Russian pogroms!

We take our wins where we get them.
And it did end up being a very Jewish story about loss and mourning and memory while also being an American road trip novel and I'm not entirely sure the mashup worked, but I very much appreciated the story that it was.

And I also feel slightly bad that one of my takeaways was "I wish xenophobia and prejudice was that easy to exorcise." I think this book overall handles the problem of making natural evil supernatural pretty well—mostly by letting it exist in the fairy tale metaphor space—but that thought did occur to me.

Also, and I have to complain, there is one moment where a character says God's holy and hidden name, but what the character says in quotes is "Shem Hamephorash" and, like, that should not have quotes around it. Otherwise the Jewish content was great.