I’m not so excited about “coming of age.” On the other hand, I also don’t see this book solely as a rewriting of the Book of Job. While the Book of Job is the most obvious reference, the book is in fact saturated with references to various parts of the Hebrew bible and rabbinic literature.

In studying modern Hebrew literature, I became intrigued by the way that modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, particularly the work of the early modern Hebrew and Yiddish writers, almost constantly refers to the Hebrew bible and commentaries on the bible, even while challenging the religious tradition. This is particularly easy to do in Hebrew, because of the language’s long history and the echoes tied to almost every word. I wondered whether it was possible to create this sort of literature—using biblically anchored language within a secular text—in English. At first I thought it would be awkward to include biblical allusions in an English book. However, I soon realized that most English readers are familiar with biblical literature only in archaic translations. This made it possible to create a work in English that could be read on several levels without overburdening the language. I wanted to create a different style for American Jewish literature, one more connected to the Jewish literary tradition of constant reference to ancient text.

As for Job: When I was twelve years old, I became a Torah reader for the children’s congregation in my synagogue, which made me very familiar with, and fascinated by, the text of the Hebrew bible. In college I majored in literature and focused on Hebrew literature, and I soon became intrigued by the Book of Job. This book is, of course, one of the most compelling and confusing books in the bible, and for that reason, I believe, it also has some of the most beautiful poetry ever written in any language.

What intrigued me most, though, was what I saw as the ultimate question of the book of Job. The book asks the question that so many people ask themselves: Why do bad things happen to good people? But as I read the book again and again, I decided that this question was misleading. To me, the central question of the Book of Job isn’t that common question—which, after all, can’t really be answered and isn’t answered at all in the book of Job—but rather: Are people “good” to begin with, or are they shaped by their experiences? What makes “bad things” important isn’t whether they happen to you or to someone else, because that’s not your decision. What makes them important is the part that is your decision: what you do with them once they’ve happened. It is a commonplace to say that people are shaped by their experiences. But that implies that you can’t control who you become, since these experiences are left to accidents of fate.