Love and Other Games of Chance: A Novelty

The flamboyant hero of this zany, wildly comic novel is Isaac Schlossberg—circus performer, entertainer, world traveler. The son of Jewish immigrants who arrived in America at the turn of the last century, Isaac spends his formative years in California, working sideshows, Wild West jamborees, and early films, before going on to India, England, Paris, Hollywood, and perhaps even to the top of Mt. Everest. Isaac organizes the tall tales of his past into one hundred chapters or squares—like those on the children’s game of Snakes and Ladders. As he travels, he moves through erotic love affairs with, among others, a Jewish tightrope walker, the daughter of a Hindu snake charmer, and a mystical British aviatrix. Raucous and inventive, this three-ring circus of a novel is at once silly and grand, absurd yet full of meaning.