The Seance

The title story an account of an old man who regularly
visits an unconvincing medium on Central Park West
exemplifies what David Boroff calls Singer’s rare ability
to “transmute metaphysical ideas into pure emotion.”
“Getzel the Monkey” is the story of a moneylender who
mimics the town’s richest man so successfully that he
becomes like him to the point of tragedy. “Zeitl and
Rickel” the story of two women who wish to marry in the
next world since they cannot do so in this one contains
the sentence “Who can tell what goes on in another’s
head?” The murderer who tells his story in “The Parrot” is
driven to kill his mistress-wife because she takes out her
unhappiness on their bird. “The Slaughterer” is a
brilliant portrait of the progressive madness of a man
persuaded against his nature to become a ritual
slaughterer. “The Brooch” is the story of a thief who is
able to work at his profession only as long as he can rely
on his wife’s probity and uprightness. “The Warehouse”
recounts the bureaucratic snarl-ups that plague souls in
the after-life. In “The Plagiarist” a rabbi defrauded by a
young disciple is asked to pray for his recovery and when
the man dies he resigns to perform penance in exile. “The
Lecture” a story set in modern Montreal reveals the reason
behind an old lady’s interest in a visiting author. “The
Needle” tells how a mother in search of a wife for her son
devises an infallible test for prospective brides. “The
Dead Fiddler” is the story of a dybbuk that talks sings
and curses in the body of a young girl. “Yanda” and “Henne
Fire” are character studies of respectively a goodhearted
Polish slavey who is fated to work for other people all
her life and a demon-like woman who causes trouble for
people even after death. “The Letter Writer” one of the
major stories in the collection relates the world of the
unseen to the harsh realities of lonely old age and
sickness in an alien modern city. This and the companion
stories prove the truth of Miss Hughes’ assertion: “Singer
is a master story-teller one of the very few who can
faithfully re-create a time forever past and render it
meaningful to a troubled present.”