Unpacking My Father's Bookstore

"I opened Laurence Roth’s biography of his bookseller father anticipating an eloquent journey of memory and meaning. There could be, I thought, a window opened into Roth’s fascinating life as a writing teacher, lover of books and elucidator of history and identity. Roth’s memoir is even more – a beautiful lamentation of his father’s work, an epic family history, a timely illumination of Jewish life in modern Los Angeles. His elegy ends not in despair but instead arrives at a sort of pragmatic consolation. I know the feeling – when I recall my family during Día de Muertos, remembrance is also deliverance. Roth rescues himself and his father with a beautiful – and mindful – embrace."