Abraham Socher

Editors’ Pick May 6, 2026 “Put your head down a moment, while I whisper—for a Jew.” Given my line of work, I think I have a pretty good sense of which important historical figures were Jewish, even in the cases where it isn’t immediately obvious. I did not know, however, that the American humorist and essayist Dorothy Parker was until I read this engaging article by Abe Socher.

Free Press 304 pp., $29.99 Simon & Schuster 464 pp., $20.99 Memoir is risky business. Its reputation? Slightly dubious. Its vices? Vanity, indiscretion, omission. Don’t trust it, said Orwell, unless it reveals something shameful. Even then, you might wonder why someone probes their past, poking around in the attic of their psyche. Why not let demons rest? If anyone understands these hazards, it’s Joseph Epstein, a great practitioner and skeptic of personal writing.

One day when I was young and easy under the red-roof tiles and as happy with my growing family as the Hollywood Hills were green (when you could see them through the smog), I walked up to the corner of Sherbourne and Pico on some small errand and ran into a guy I’ll call Charles. We weren’t exactly friends, but we’d met the previous year in Jerusalem.