SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER
"An extraordinary novel, and Itsik Malpesh is one of literature's most stunning achievements."
—Junot Díaz, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO

“Manseau’s book is an intellectual journey and also a love story.”
—Washington Jewish Week

“Seductive and playful, the novel, with many unforgettable scenes, is also a serious meditation on language, love, loyalty and memory.”
—New York Jewish Week

“SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER is a book about writing, a warm, funny, and fascinating testament to the power of words, a power that outlives a dying language and transcends love.”
—Jewish Book World

“Peter Manseau’s novel creates a Marc Chagall-like world of pathos, humor and enchantment. Beginning in nineteenth century Russia and ending in 1990s Baltimore…this winsome story brings lovers together – and drives them apart.”
—Baltimore Sun

“SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER reads like a thriller. Gracefully written, Manseau offers an exhilarating exploration of violence and religion, a glimpse of a dying culture being remade and a look at what Yiddish means…a remarkable accomplishment.”
—Moment

“I couldn’t put it down.”
—Patton Dodd, Beliefnet

“SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER is one of the most original and gripping novels I've read in a long time. From the very first page, I knew I was in the hands of a mesmerizing storyteller and born writer. Blessed with a biting wit, a huge heart, and a dazzling flair for language – how we use it and how it defines us – Manseau is the real thing. This is a gorgeous debut novel."
—Ellen Feldman, author of LUCY and THE BOY WHO LOVED ANNE FRANK

“SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER explores with profound insight the treacherous territory of language: its elusive, inconstant and enigmatic character, and its fundamental role in how we define ourselves as human beings.”
—Linda Olsson, author of ASTRID & VERONIKA and SONATA FOR MIRIAM

"Huge in scope and soul, SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER is a sweeping, lyrical, utterly consuming epic. Peter Manseau is a writer with the heart of a mystic, and his novel is an extraordinary gift."
—Elisa Albert, author of THE BOOK OF DAHLIA, and HOW THIS NIGHT IS DIFFERENT

"Peter Manseau has created a rich tapestry of European and American Jewish life at the turn of the 20th century. This beautifully written novel of love and tragedy is a magic realist tale filled with wonderful detail. We join him on a hundred year journey that weaves together the Old and New Worlds."
—Martin Lemelman, author of MENDEL’S DAUGHTER

"Ranging from pogroms to poetry, from the purity of sex to the impurity of translation, from the Pale of Settlement to the Lower East Side to Eretz Yisroel, SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER enacts the finest rendering in ages of the historical and intellectual transit of 20th century Jewry. Most shocking, the author is a goy. Alas for anyone who finds this small fact bothersome, SONGS is written with utmost integrity as well as dramatic momentum. It's a delirious read."
—Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of SIGNS AND WONDERS

“Rich, often ironic homage to Yiddish culture and language.”
—Publishers Weekly

“In his debut novel, Manseau reaches across cultures to compose a living, breathing portrait of a bad-tempered but charmingly eloquent poet and the young man chosen to bring his words forward in time…The translator’s inexperience puts poet Malpesh’s cynical voice into perspective, as the young man’s clumsy first experiences with modern-day romance stand in stark, sometimes poignant contrast to Malpesh...who remembers his ninety-something years with equal parts impish humor and profound melancholy…A terrific book with a believable protagonist who’s given ample room to tell his tale.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Rooted in the sharp, bittersweet Yiddish tradition reminiscent of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Manseau's thrilling tale of secrets and revelations captures the diversity among Jews, then and now, in shtetl, city, and kibbutz, and the elemental meaning of bashert, or destiny.”
—Booklist, starred review

“Cleverly narrated.”
—Library Journal

“Richly woven…Manseau is a captivating novelist and, what’s more, a welcome connoisseur of a beautiful tradition…Embedded in the pathos, repartee and slapstick, is a powerful vein of symbolism redolent of deeper insights into the bashert, or destiny, of the Jewish peoples…A lovely book”
—The Canberra Times (Australia)

"Manseau paints an intimate picture of the times, filled with Yiddish idiosyncrasies and an eerily innate understanding of the circumstances, yet the story remains unsentimental, always with a whiff of Yiddish humour…. [SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER] is a powerful story that will resonate with… those who have been touched by their own migration or that of their ancestors."
—Australian Jewish News

"In a word: Sweeping."
—Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia)

“There are two extraordinary things about Peter Manseau’s SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER; the first is the novel, the second is the author himself…Manseau writes with profound depth and aching beauty…This is a wonderful book, easy for anybody to read, which will give a thrilling insight into the depth and sophisticated culture of the six million people whose lives were truncated by the madness of Nazism. Not only does Manseau get his dialogue spot on, but his subtle appreciation of the nuances of Yiddish literature and culture is extraordinary. Outstanding.”
—Good Reading Magazine (Australia), Five Stars *****

“Action-packed… Manseau’s novel is a racketing story, an artful meditation on the joys and perils of translation, and a lyrical tribute to Yiddish culture, with its zany humour and shadow lines of sorrow.”
— The Age (Australia)

“Exquisitely beautiful, vivid, and utterly unexpected… SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER is a completely original and exciting novel that, from its first few lines, holds the reader mesmerized. We are in the hands of a supreme storyteller, an author of wit and char, one who has a breathtaking flair for language. This is a seriously impressive and accomplished work for a debut novel, identifying Manseau as a writer of great and exciting potential, one able to see the world vividly, even through other people’s eyes.”
—Weekend Australian

“[SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER] will leave the reader bedazzled and riffling back through the book to recapture the pivotal acts that lead to such a satisfying outcome. I'm willing to bet that Manseau is on his way to a Nobel Prize in Literature.”
—Australian Country Style

“Witnessing a mind such as Manseau's at work, weaving in and out, ducking and diving, racing along, is always a pleasure... It is a virtuoso performance by a gifted, poetic writer with the guts to tackle, in an intimate and not altogether uncritical way, a part of history that Jews might often think that no one else could grasp.”
—Sydney Morning Herald

“I have to admit, I was intrigued by both the title and the cover of this book, long before I had the opportunity to open its jacket. What I wasn't prepared for was how completely I would fall into it. I was swept along by the story, the marvelous humanity of both the main characters and the ones that only appear in occasional vignettes, the warmth and humour of the telling, as well as the revelation of the richness of a vanishing culture… If you want a big theme book that is both engrossing and well written, you need look no further. I have no hesitation in making this my book of the month.”
—Booktopia (Australia)

“The story draws you into a Jewish history full of humor, tragedy, love and loss. The character of Itsik Malpesh and his unrelenting passion for words have enabled the author to create some wonderfully detailed imagery, taking the reader on a journey of not only a long life but of a culture and a language that has adapted itself within the many lands it adopts. In a word: insightful.”
—The Herald Sun (Australia)

“This is a tender tale of an elderly Russian immigrant Yiddish poet, and the young man who translates his forgotten works.”
—Newcastle Herald (U.K.)

“First-time novelist Manseau cleverly brings the story of the now-elderly poet together with that of the young Jewish imposter. Along the way, we are treated to a wonderful view of how it was to be a Jewish immigrant in New York. This is a warm and heartfelt story about people who find hope through love, even when that love is impossible. Highly recommended.”
—Bookloons website

“I reveled in the richness of this epic tale.”
—Daily Mail (U.K.)

“Exhilarating and enchanting… Peter Manseau is a born storyteller.”
—Richard Mason, author of THE LIGHTED ROOMS

“A fine novel... affecting, deeply moral but never pious.”
—The Glasgow Herald (U.K.)

“An absorbing immigrant’s tale, an epic that intersperses a love story with great insight into Jewish culture.”
—Catholic Herald (U.K.)

“Just as the brilliance of this book makes me deem it general fiction that breaks it away from the esoteric subjects that might have made me call it literary fiction, so by the end, the Malpesh story has wrapped me in such emotions, the book breaks away from the four and a half stars it might have got to get the full whammy.”
—The Bookbag (U.K.)

“At once a Yiddish history of the twentieth century, a magical-realist love story and a fascinating exploration of the relationship between language and identity.”
—Time Out (U.K.)

“Acts of literary ventriloquism don’t come very much bolder than Peter Manseau’s. What kind of author might you expect to steep himself in the folklore-studded fiction of Russian Jewish life, both in the pogrom-prone Pale and then, after migration, in the poor but story-strewn streets of old New York? The answer would, most probably, not involve the child of a former priest – and a former nun… Dives into the yearn-spinning Yiddish culture of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Sholem Aleichem with all the delirious abandon of a tipsy fiddler falling off a snow-covered roof.”
—Independent (U.K.)

“Takes in two world wars and mass migration to map out a century of religious discord and cultural antagonism but it is also a love letter to the power of the written word to survive when all else is lost. Manseau gives Malpesh in particular a vivid unselfconciousness that makes him a frequently unwitting comic witness to his own experience, while investing his memoirs with an intoxicating flair for detail. It's a truism to say that a culture is preserved through the art and literature it produces, but Manseau's wonderfully involving novel brings this notion to brilliantly eccentric life.”
—Metro (U.K.)

“Jonathan Safran Foer had Alexander Perchov, Junot Diaz had Oscar Wao, and now you can add Peter Manseau's Itsik Malpesh to the list of literary characters you wish actually existed... Manseau's great skill lies in making his characters believable. You can imagine making Malpesh's mistakes yourself (except for, perhaps, murder) and can't help feeling jealous that his translator met the ‘last Yiddish poet in America.’”
—London Lite