Contemporary Humorous Fiction: Sally Koslow and Adam Langer with Jodi Rudoren

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Jewish humor – especially in dark times – is a long-storied genre, tool for survival, and gift of mirth, especially in literature. Authors Sally Koslow and Adam Langer have used humor to their novels to explore complicated themes like family relationships, trauma, and politics. Langer’s novel Cyclorama tells the story of a group of former high school actors who are living with the consequences of their past actions. Koslow’s book, The Real Mrs. Tobias, explores relationships between three generations of women. In this conversation, moderated by Jodi Rodoren, Editor-in-Chief of the Forward, the authors will discuss their books and the role Jewish humor plays in their fiction.   

Sally Koslow is the author of Another Side of Paradise; The Widow Waltz; The Late, Lamented Molly Marx; and With Friends Like These and the nonfictional Slouching Toward Adulthood: How To Let Go So Your Kids Can Grow Up. Her debut novel, Little Pink Slips, was inspired by her long career as editor-in-chief of iconic McCall’s Magazine. Her books have been published in a dozen countries. 

Adam Langer is a journalist, editor, podcast producer, and the author of a memoir and five novels, including Cyclorama, The Washington Story, Ellington Boulevard, The Thieves of Manhattan, The Salinger Contract, and the internationally best-selling novel Crossing California, which was described in the Chicago Tribune by James Atlas as “the most vivid novel about Chicago since Saul Bellow’s Herzog and the most ambitious debut set in Chicago since Philip Roth’s Letting Go.” Formerly a senior editor at Book Magazine and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, he currently serves as Executive Editor at the Forward. 

Jodi Rudoren is Editor-in-Chief of the Forward. A veteran reporter, editor, and digital innovator who spent more than two decades at The New York Times, she is helping lead a transformation of the storied 125-year-old Forward. Jodi writes a weekly newsletter, “Looking Forward,” that has received broad acclaim, edits the morning briefing “Forwarding the News,” and helped turn the newspaper’s signature advice column, “A Bintel Brief,” into a podcast that just completed its second season. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Fuller Project, a nonprofit newsroom doing groundbreaking investigative work on gender. 

Photo Credit: Sally Koslow © Johanna Resnick Rosen. 

Co-presented by the Forward.