Tragedy, Comedy, Versace: A Look at Jews, Identity, and the Creation of American Materialism

Alana Newhouse is the founder and Editor in Chief of Tablet magazine. Her work has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York magazine, and elsewhere.

Bob Morris is the author of Crispin the Terrible and Assisted Loving, which received honors from the American Library Association, Lambda Literary Awards and was a New York Times editor's choice. A frequent contributor to the Times, he has also been a commentator on NPR's All Things Considered and has written for the The Southampton Review, Elle, the New Yorker, Town and Country and other publications. His mother's last word was his name. His father's was "Wonderful." Together they inspired the title for his latest memoir, Bobby Wonderful: An Imperfect Son Buries His Parents (Twelve), a true story of love and redemption. Bob Morris was always the entertainer in his family, but not always a perfect son. When he finds his parents approaching the end of their lives, he begins to see his relationship to them in a whole new light and it changes his way of thinking. As accessible as he is insightful, Bob Morris infuses each moment of his profound emotional journey with dark comedy, spiritual inquiry and brutally honest self-examination.

David Samuels is the author of two books, The Runner and Only Love Can Break Your Heart. His work has been featured in Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Feuilleton, and n+1, among others.

Gillian Laub is a well-known visual artist whose photographs have appeared in Time and the New York Times magazine, who has spent more than a decade documenting disparate cultures around the world, from the Middle East to the Deep South, through vivid, iconic portraits. Laub made her directorial debut this year on HBO with Southern Rites, a John Legend-produced documentary about segregation in the American South, which launched along with an exhibit at the Benrubi Gallery in New York and a photography book published by Damiani.

Joshua Cohen has written novels (Witz), short fiction (Four New Messages), and nonfiction for the New York Times, London Review of Books, Bookforum, the Forward, and others. He is a critic for Harper’s Magazine. His latest novel, Book of Numbers (Random House), combines insider tech exposé, leaked memoir-in-progress, international thriller, family drama, sex comedy, and biblical allegory to render the full range of modern experience both online and off. Embodying the Internet in its language, it finds the humanity underlying the virtual.