Monday, November 3 at 2:00 PM
Howard Langer’s inventive novel, The Last Dekrepitzer (2024), imagines what would happen if the last remaining survivor of a Hasidic sect found his way to the pre-Civil Rights American South and took on a new identity as a blues musician named Sam Lightup. The novel explores subjects like race, the legacy of the Holocaust, music, and God.
Langer will be in conversation about his work with Kathryn Hellerstein, Professor of Germanic Studies (specializing in Yiddish) and former Ruth Meltzer Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
A book signing will follow the program. Sales are arranged through Head House Books.
Howard Langer has taught at University of Pennsylvania Law School for the last twenty years. His law practice has specialized in protecting the vulnerable and his most notable case involved a class action that recovered $200 million from a bank that had abetted fraudulent telemarketers who preyed on the poor and elderly. The case restored to the victims all that had been taken by the telemarketers. His pro bono work has been recognized by the Philadelphia Bar Association and Community Legal Services among others. His text on Antitrust law, The Competition Law of the United States, is currently in its fourth edition. He has published a number of short non-fiction pieces in recent years.
He began writing The Last Dekreptizer in 2021, when he was seventy, after attending a Zoom workshop by George Saunders sponsored by the Free Library of Philadelphia at the height of the COVID pandemic. Inspired by Saunder’s presentation, Howard began writing the next morning what eventually morphed into the novel.
Please note: All registration charges are final.
Non-member price: $20.00
This event is free to Athenaeum members.
