What Isaac Babel did for Russian Jews, what Franz Rosenzweig did for German Jews; Norma Rosen has, in four critically acclaimed books, attempted to do for American Jews. Her three novels and her collection of short stories record encounters with a heritage that became soul-shaking conversion experiences. Her disaffiliated characters confront the tradition they disavowed and find their perceptions totally altered. These secularized, assimilated characters are brought through complicated plots and ironic turns of events to the point where a sudden glimpse of the ethical ideals of Judaism make the American quest for self-fulfillment unthinkable.

Norma Gangel Rosen was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn. As she put it in a 1982 essay for the New York Times , "I grew up an only child but hardly knew it. For years I lived my after-school days and part of my evenings at my grandparents' house. It was full of children--my aunts...