Nov
9

The two sets of old folks spoke, between them, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Ruthenian,  Romanian, Latvian, Czech, and Hungarian, Charlie had once told Lucian, but not one of the four had ever managed to learn more English than was needed to procure a quarter pound of smoked sturgeon from the deli.
—Deborah Eisenberg, from “Twilight of the Superheroes”

About

Poets think in lines, prose writers in sentences; the best of both work from sound to sense, with an ear for the music in their compositions. S for Sentence celebrates lyricism in prose, the play and craft at work in the artful sentence. We post a sentence a month along with comments by a guest writer on the craft that shapes it, on what makes it great. In one or two sentences.
—Pearl Abraham, Editor
The use of the list here—the litany of Eastern European languages—tells us so much about the history of Eastern Europe, and of Jewish wandering and displacement, but with tremendous economy. And the humor: it all comes down to sturgeon, which must be purchased. The short sentence that follows is like a punch (line). “They worked impossible hours, they drank a little schnapps, and then, in due course, they died." She could be describing my own grandparents, or so many others that came, and still come, to sacrifice for future generations. All sketched out in a few lines.
—Sharon Pomerantz is the author of Rich Boy