Summary

The format of sections beginning “How To Play …” continues, with imagined memories of future life, including Max’s bar mitzvah, at which he speaks of Israel meaning “wrestles with G-d”. There are also references to wrestling essentially implying closeness and a kind of connection, and to the idea that “you only get to keep what you refuse to let go of” (511). There are detailed recollections of Sam’s gestation and childhood (in which Jacob reflects on the preciousness of each moment he got to spend with him), and on how feeling so much love did not bring happiness.

There is then an extended “How To Play No-One” section, in which Jacob’s memories of talking with Tamir at the airport about Jacob’s decision to stay in America are intercut with Jacob, at his bar mitzvah, receiving a camera from...