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The Wandering Jewboy
Paperback
General FictionLiterary Fiction
Publisher Price: $17.99
ISBN13: 9789655960938
Publisher: Wandering Jewboy Press
Published: Oct 8 2026
Pages: 350
Weight: 0.89
Height: 0.78 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
An irreverently comic literary coming-of-age novel blending magical realism and spiritual satire in a globe-spanning search for identity, faith and belonging.
It is 1979. Doodle is eight when his truth-seeking parents uproot him from the small Jewish world he knows in New Zealand and set off in search of God. Their spiritual odyssey takes the family around the globe: to a New Age nudist colony in Spain, a bunny-infested Paris apartment, a cliquish Israeli kibbutz, a born-again fellowship in a small, racist English town, and finally a Jews for Jesus community back in New Zealand.
Doodle is left trying to understand the adults' competing revelations and what any of them mean for him. All the while, puberty and an increasingly bewildering sexual awakening produce revelations ripe with spiritual guilt.
At decisive moments, a broken-nosed stranger appears, offering cryptic insights and magical popcorn. Playful, unsettling and seemingly untouched by time, he returns as Doodle grows, drawing him towards an ancient story and a question he cannot escape: where, and with whom, does he belong?
Across a decade of migrations, misadventures and inherited contradictions, The Wandering Jewboy balances comic absurdity with quiet wonder. Born to a Jewish mother and Gentile father, Doodle must navigate family belief, dislocation and the long shadow of exile.
For readers of literary fiction who appreciate humour alongside thoughtful explorations of faith, identity, migration and belonging, this is a funny, tender and unsettling portrait of a boy growing up in other people's promised lands.
This edition features original cover art and title lettering by contemporary Byzantine artist Fikos.
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