Winter 2021 Nonfiction – Big City Lit

The Kaddish of Pandemic

Mar 27, 2023Judy Bolton-FasmanWinter 2021, Winter 2021 NonfictionJudy Bolton-Fasman, Nonfiction

by Judy Bolton-Fasman I read the obituaries of those who have died in the pandemic, and say many of their names softly before I recite the five paragraphs of the Kaddish—the Jewish prayer of mourning. A new day, a new set of names. I make my way through the prayer’s chewy Aramaic, memorializing the lives

Flip Flops on Madison

Mar 27, 2023Karol NielsenWinter 2021, Winter 2021 NonfictionKarol Nielsen, Nonfiction

by Karol Nielsen It was a modestly priced one-bedroom in a charming townhouse near the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I was deeply in love, even though I could see all of its flaws. The baseboards didn’t line up with the floor. The oak parquet had dry rotted and squeaked. The ceiling rippled like the