For the Relief of Unbearable Urges

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is 28-year-old Nathan Englander's first collection of stories: Jewish stories by a Jewish writer which transcend the particular and soar into the realm of the universal.

The stories are particular, indeed stories about a Stalinist pogrom, a ghetto roundup, a rabbi Santa Claus, and a desperate wigmaker, to name…