Peter Elyakim Taussig

Yossl the Citron King Peter Elyakim Taussig

"Given a choice Albert would have never left his recliner..." thus begins the strange love story between a man and his chair. In Papua New Guinea a hitherto uncontacted tribe is discovered to speak Yiddish. A little deaf orphan survives the Bosnian massacre and is adopted by a nurse from Toronto where he meets another survivor, a deaf-mute Muslim girl who changes his life. A hiker, lost in the forests of New England meets a reclusive trapper who he suspects to be God almighty hiding from humanity. The invention of artificial gills allows humans to recolonize the ocean. An entrepreneur founds a world-wide lottery that ushers in world peace. And then there is Yossl "the citron king", a traveling merchant peddling sacramental Etrogs in the shtetls of 19th century Austria who marries a "shiksa" and thus becomes (perhaps) the great grandfather of the author. These are just some of outlandish tales in this absurdist collection of short stories.