To Be A Man

 To Be A Man is a collection of ten short stories written by Nicole Krauss. The ten stories take place all over the world including Switzerland, Germany, California, Tel Aviv and Japan. The stories include men and women of Jewish descent. One story is about a grandfather, just home from a long hospital stay, goes to his daughter's apartment for his grandson's bris ceremony. Before the bris begins he takes his grandson out of the apartment and up on the roof of the apartment building. In another story three teenaged international students are sharing a room in a boarding house in Switzerland. One of the girls go missing for three nights. Her father comes to find her. In another story a girl asks her German boyfriend if, had he been born at the right time, would he have become a Nazi. He replies that he probably would have become a Nazi. He adds that he would have killed in battle but would not have been able to kill in any camps. In another story a woman from New York inherits both a New York apartment and a Tel Aviv apartment when her father expectantly dies. While she had always considered the New York apartment as her father's primary home, once she gets to Tel Aviv and stays there, she realizes the Tel Aviv apartment was most likely his real home. Only one of the stories was about being a man. The stories were interesting, entertaining, and somewhat sad in nature.