Camp Jeff

Reich, a National Jewish Book Award finalist for Mother India, centers #MeToo and self-help culture in a novel that’s more a string of brilliant moments than a coherent whole. In her latest work, benefactor Jeffrey Epstein—not the one in news headlines—opens a camp in the Catskills for sex offenders called out in the #MeToo movement. Chief among them is intellectual Gershon Gordon, now viewed as poison but formerly published in all the best sources. Opposite him is camp director Dr. Zoya Roy. Her Zoyaroyan Psychoempathy program places Gershon on stage, and he’s forced to listen to a victim without speaking until she’s too drained to continue. COVID hits the camp, and Gershon isolates himself in his room, where he reminisces on earlier good times spent with the notorious Jeffrey Epstein. This book’s Epstein marries, then browbeats a befuddled Talmud scholar, Hedy Nussbaum, into supporting his grand scheme to deliver a deathblow to antisemitism, which he’s convinced caused his fall from grace.