Forward Fives: 2012 in Fiction

Image by MICHAEL SHARKEY
In the annual Forward Fives selection we celebrate the year’s cultural output with a series of deliberately eclectic choices in music, performance, exhibitions, books and film. Here we present five of our favorite works of fiction of 2012. Feel free to argue with and add to our selections in the comments.

Image by MICHAEL SHARKEY
Jami Attenberg, “The Middlesteins”
Deeply sympathetic yet bitterly unforgiving, Attenberg’s suburban Chicago family saga suggests more than a passing familiarity with Saul Bellow as it presents the reader with the story of Edie Middlestein née Herzen, a woman slowly yet inexorably tumbling towards self-destruction.
Nathan Englander, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”
Bouncing back from the mannered and self-consciously erudite prose of his first novel, “The Ministry of Special Cases,” Englander returns with this stunning collection that, particularly in the title story, shows the author to be a master of both empathy and ventriloquism.
Deborah Levy, “Swimming Home”
A finalist for this year’s Man Booker Prize, Levy’s compact novel of love and obsession in an anxious age hints at both Henry James and John Cheever while embodying a linguistic mastery that has become this author’s hallmark.
Ellen Ullman, “By Blood”
One of our most overlooked and yet consistently surprising and engaging authors, this time out, Ullman, a onetime computer programmer, offers a gripping novel of psychoanalysis and obsession that begins in 1970s San Francisco but delves far deeper into the darkest moments of Jewish history.
Benjamin Stein, “The Canvas”
Riffing on the notorious case of Benjamin Wilkomirski, author of the fraudulent Holocaust memoir “Fragments,” the German author Stein offers a dizzying tale of the elusiveness of identity — Jewish and otherwise.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Protesters clash in Crown Heights as Ben-Gvir visits Chabad headquarters
-
Yiddish ווידעאָ: היסטאָריקער שמואל קאַסאָוו דערציילט מעשׂיות פֿון זײַן משפּחה־געשיכטעVIDEO: Historian Samuel Kassow shares stories about his family history
דער ווידעאָ איז טשיקאַווע סײַ פֿאַרן אינהאַלט סײַ פֿאַר קאַסאָווס נאַטירלעכן ליטוויש־ייִדיש
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.