Roger Simon is a retired Hollywood screenwriter and novelist. I’ve read his previous novel, The GOAT, about an older man who makes a deal with the devil and becomes the greatest tennis player of all time. It’s very funny and thought-provoking at the same time.

His recently released book, Emet, is more serious. It’s a thriller/fantasy tale told through the eyes of a rabbi, Benjamin Golub. He lives in Nashville, TN, and is a rabbi for a synagogue there. As a fellow Nashvillian, I really enjoyed Simon’s references to real-life locations in our city, as well as his accurate representation of its culture.

One day in 2023, a tornado rips through Nashville, and Benjamin goes to his synagogue’s storm shelter. Also sheltering with him are his wife, Maya, their tweenage grandson, Menahem (Max), and good friends Ed Ristic and Tamara Klein. Tamara is grieving the death of her 23-year-old niece, Allison, who was brutally murdered while out jogging. She blames herself, because she urged Allison to come visit her in Nashville after a difficult breakup. Ed runs a coffeeshop, The Orphanage, and has befriended Tamara. He also fancies himself as a sculptor.

The morning after the tornado blows through, they go outside to take stock of things. The backyard of the synagogue is a mess of fallen trees and mud. Ed has already been there, shoveling mud away from the back wall, and he has created a big pile of mud that is vaguely humanoid. Ed jokes that he could make a statue out of it. Maya reminds Benjamin that it looks like a statue they saw in Prague of a Golem – a mythical being that was brought to life by a Rabbi Loew around 1600. He took some inanimate materials to fashion a humanoid and engraved the word Emet on its forehead, which means “truth”. The legend is that Rabbi Loew used the Golem to protect the Jews living in Prague from pogroms, but it soon got a mind of its own and ended up causing more harm than good.

Max, who is a mathematical and technological prodigy, is fascinated by the story. He is staying with his grandparents, because he got in trouble in school and was suspended.

He had responded to a teacher asking what his pronouns were with “I identify as a donkey. He/haw.” Some of his classmates laughed, but the teacher didn’t think it was funny, and things went south from there.

Simon, Roger. EMET (pp. 32-33). Green Hills Books. Kindle Edition.

Later that evening, unable to sleep, Benjamin gets up and goes out to look at the pile of mud Ed made. You can guess what he does next: he takes a stick and engraves Emet where it looks like a forehead is.

To continue reading my review, click here.