The Book of Brad
Adoptee Rose Pettigrew, a young black legal aid lawyer in Los Angeles, aches to find her family heritage. A DNA test brings a surprising result; she’s half Jewish, and the likely daughter of a famous rabbi! Rose’s lover, Paula Bernstein, has a complicated relationship with her own Jewish heritage. Now Rose has to decide how much of a Jew she wants to be. The worst part is, Rose discovers her Jewish identity a week after her biological father, Rabbi Brad Cohen, Rabbi to the Stars, the founder of Extremely Progressive Judaism, has died in a fiery car crash on an LA freeway. Rose can only connect with her father now by reading Rabbi Brad’s books! Each chapter of the novel begins with a short reading from “God and Sex, What’s Not to Like?”, or “Rabbi Brad’s Guide to a Joy-Filled Family,” or, later in the book, “Rabbi Brad’s Guide to a Joy-Filled Death.”
Rose reaches out to the family her late father left behind, desperate for connection. Her ally is Rabbi Brad’s estranged and guilt-ridden father, Rabbi Shmuel Cohen. Shmuel is 82 years old, with a heart condition that he knows could kill him at any time. Shmuel needs to stay alive long enough to help make his new grandchild, Rose Pettigrew, a real part of their family. It is up to all of them to deal with the mess that Brad the Dad left behind, including secrets and lies. What really makes a family, in the end? Religion, genes, a shared love of babka, the ability to get a joke with a Yiddish punch line? Or are these matters settled more in the heart than in the DNA lab?