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Bagels
and Grits
A Jew on the Bayou
Jennifer Anne Moses
"Bagels and Grits is one
of the most moving spiritual memoirs I've ever read. From beginning
to end it held me enthralled."
—James
Wilcox, director of creative writing, Louisiana State University
and author of Heavenly Days and Hunk City more
Outstanding Book, selected by the American Association of School Librarians
Best Books for Regional Special Interests, selected by the Public Library Association
Jennifer Anne Moses left behind a comfortable
life in the upper echelons of East Coast Jewish society to move
with her husband and children to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Searching
for connection to her surroundings, she decided to volunteer
at an AIDS hospice. But as she encountered a culture populated
by French Catholics and Evangelical Christians, African Americans
and Cajuns, altruistic nurses and nuns, ex-cons, street-walkers,
impoverished AIDS patients, and healers of all stripes, she found
she had embarked on an unexpected journey of profound self-discovery.
In a keenly observed memoir that embraces both pathos and humor,
Moses takes us into a world that is strange and sad but also
suffused with the holy. As witness to dire poverty and extreme
adversity, Moses discovers a deeper commitment to her own faith-a
Judaism that asks not for blind belief, but rather daily commitment.
She recounts the challenges of taking on a life committed to
God in a postmodern world that has little use for the divine.
Telling her story of redemption with an honesty that goes right
for the guts, she leaves the reader with new hope.
“This smart, funny, wise book is every kind of song—part cheering Broadway melody, part devout religious chant, part rousing gospel sing-along—and Jennifer Moses gets to sing all the parts, in her wisecracking, inviting, distinctive voice. Aren’t we all looking for that sign from God? With open eyes and an open heart, we will see them everywhere, just as she did.”—The Times-Picayune
 Jennifer
Anne Moses is a writer living in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her essays, reporting, reviews, and travel
and opinion pieces have appeared frequently in the New York
Times, Washington Post, Baton Rouge Advocate, Notre Dame Magazine,
Atlanta Journal Constitution, Salon, Mademoiselle, Commentary,
and many other popular publications. She is the author of
the book Food and Whine: Confessions of a New Millennium Mom.
In addition to her work as a writer and mother, she volunteers
at St. Anthony's Home, a residence for AIDS patients in Baton
Rouge, and teaches Hebrew at Beth Shalom Synagogue.
Jennifer Moses has a web site, with more
information about this book: jenniferannemoses.com
There is a press kit for this title. For more information regarding publicity
and reviews contact our publicity manager, phone: (608) 263-0734,
email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu
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October 2007
LC: 2007011823 F
176 pp. 6 x 9
A trade imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press
"A powerful, witty, honest, and probing
spiritual autobiography of the first order. . . . Moses grows
and grows in this book as she opens more and more to the love
and faith and pain around her."
—Rodger Kamenetz, author
of The Jew in the Lotus and The History of Last Night's
Dream
"An enchanting, enthralling, and enlightening
memoir–part Nora Ephron, part Harold Kushner, and–happily–uniquely
Jennifer Anne Moses! An exciting, tender, and most affecting
voyage of discovery."
—Jay Neugeboren, author of Imagining
Robert, The Stolen Jew, and News from the New American
Diaspora |
