Summary

In “Is and Isn't,” Jules listens to Rabbi Klausner sermonize to the congregation at Gilgul. Klausner mentions King David and the possibility of transcending from the finite to the infinite. Jules reflects on his parents and his need to honor them somehow. He remembers how his father, Sol, had another wife and son before meeting his mother. This wife and child were both killed in the Holocaust and Sol suffered terrible bouts of depression throughout Jules' childhood. He remembers cleaning out his parents' home in Miami after their deaths and finding a tin filled with his own baby teeth that his mother, Edie, had saved. He recalls being diagnosed with skin cancer when his children were still young, that he had been told by the doctor that it was fatal, but he never returned for...