Jacob's Folly

Jacob is a Jewish peddler living in eighteenth-century France; Leslie and Deirdre Senzatimore are a settled American couple; and Masha is an alluring young ultra-Orthodox Jew who is gravely ill. In Jacob’s Folly, these four individuals will find their fates intertwined and the courses of their lives irrevocably altered when Jacob is reincarnated as a house fly in contemporary Long Island.

Through the unique lens of Jacob’s consciousness, Miller explores transformation in all its guisespersonal, spiritual and literal. As she considers the hold of the past on the present, the power of private hopes and dreams, and the collision of fate and free will, Miller’s worldwhich is our own, transfigured by her startlingly clear gaze and by her sharp, surprising witcomes to vibrant life. Leslie’s desire to act as hero and rescuer, Jacob’s disastrous marriage to the childlike Hodle and his intense obsession with MashaMiller sketches her characters’ interior lives with compassion, subtlety and an exceptionally light touch. Jacob’s Folly will leave the reader, no less than its characters, transformed.