Joseph Skibell's magical tale about the Holocaust-a fable inspired by fact-received unanimous nationwide acclaim when first published in 1997. At the center of A Blessing on the Moon is Chaim Skibelski. Death is merely the beginning of Chaim's troubles. In the opening pages, he is shot along with the other Jews of his small Polish village. But instead of resting peacefully in the World to Come, Chaim, for reasons unclear to him, is left to wander the earth, accompanied by his rabbi, who has taken the form of a talking crow. Chaim's afterlife journey is filled with extraordinary encounters whose consequences are far greater than he realizes. Not since art Spiegelman's Maus has a work so powerfully evoked one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century with such daring originality. Possessing "a gifted, committed imagination" (New York Times), Joseph Skibell is the author of three novels, A Blessing on the Moon, The English Disease, and A Curable Romantic; the forthcoming collection of nonfiction stories My Father's Guitar and Other Imaginary Things; and another forthcoming nonfiction work, Six Memos from the Last Millennium: A Novelist Reads the Talmud. He has received numerous awards, including the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Sami Rohr Award in Jewish Literature, Story magazine's Short Short-Story Prize, and the Turner Prize for First Fiction. As director of the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature from 2008 to 2015, he sang and played guitar onstage with both Margaret Atwood and Paul Simon. A professor at Emory University, Skibell has also taught at the University of Wisconsin and the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. Recently a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, he is the Winship Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities at Emory University. A native Texan, he lives mostly in his head. Discussion Points 1. Why do you suppose this book is titled A Blessing on the Moon? What is the significance of the moon? 2. Chaim's adventures all take place in the afterlife and he believes in the World to Come. What is the World to Come and how does his belief affect his journey? 3. What can a character who's dead accomplish in a novel that a comparable character who's living cannot? 4. Chaim and Ola have an unusual relationship. Describe the nature of that relationship and what it means to each of them. 5. Chaim meets a man who identifies himself as the soldier who shot him. At one point Chaim says to him, I could suffocate you! Instead he helps him. Why does Chaim take care of him? 6. On page 196, Chaim wishes for something momentous, something extravagant, something along the lines of Ola's ascension but without the gaudy theatricals. Does he get his wish? Compare the appearance of Jesus and Mary to Chaim's vision at the end of the book. 7. Is the Ida Kaminski who is registered at the Hotel Amfortas Chaim's first wife, or another Ida Kaminski? Why do you think the author chooses not to answer this question in the narrative? 8. In spite of everything that has happened to him, Chaim seems to keep his faith in God. In the last part of Chaim's journey, however, he at first resists accompanying the two Hasids in their search for the moon. Is this because he has lost his faith or does he hold on to his belief to the end of the book? 9. How does part one of the book address the personal; part two, the collective; and part three, the cosmic or universal? 10. Many novelistic treatments of the Holocaust have been published over the years. How do the works of first generation survivors contrast with the Holocaust literature now being published by the new, younger generation of writers? Recommended Reading from Joseph Skibell So many important Jewish books are now available in English, paring down a list