Autocorrect
By Etgar Keret. Translated by Jessica Cohen and Sondra Silverston (Riverhead Books)

In the 33 stories of his new collection, Autocorrect, Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret conjures Kafkaesque frontiers of human loneliness and myriad scenarios for the end of the world as we know it.

Here’s a sampling of plot points: The day after a scientist’s girlfriend leaves New York for Australia, he falls madly in love with her doppelganger, newly arrived from an alternate universe to compete on an interdimensional game show; the consciousness of every human being is transferred to the cloud, until an unintended software update erases it all; a documentary film lasts more than 70 years—the entirety of its protagonist’s life—and most of the audience dies before credits roll. In yet another, an unfaithful husband aims to surprise his wife on her 50th birthday by getting a newly discovered asteroid named for her, only to discover that same space rock is hurtling toward Earth, likely to cause millions of deaths.

With the possible exception of David Grossman, Keret is Israel’s best-known living author. He’s not an obvious candidate for that distinction. Unlike Grossman or, say, the late Amos Oz, a reader doesn’t come to Keret to better understand Israeli society. One could mistakenly think Keret’s surrealist, speculative brand of flash fiction could come from the post-modern ether. However, a closer reading—coupled with what Keret has said about his work in interviews—reveals a storyteller forged by secular Israeli culture and the Yiddish storytelling tradition.

Keret recently made news when he was named director of the new master of fine arts program at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. I found this an instance of both bashert timing and irony. In Autocorrect, Keret dispenses with many of the lessons taught to creative writing students, including to build strong characters and give them desires. Some of Keret’s shortest stories don’t appear to have characters at all. Rather, they come across to the reader as disembodied thoughts.

In one such story, “Life: Spoiler Alert,” an unnamed narrator tells an unnamed second person what to expect in the world. No characters are introduced. It begins, “Living is the easiest thing in the world. Your mom pushes, a man in the white coat on the other side of the uterus pulls. Out you pop, and someone cuts your umbilical cord. Start crying. The lights are too bright. Air enters your lungs. Air exits your lungs.”

Each of us is ultimately alone, Keret seems to be saying, marooned in our consciousness.

By dispensing with the rules, Keret does something remarkable: His latest collection reads like no one else’s. A true minimalist, he has the confidence to leave the canvas comparatively empty and let a few details speak volumes.

Yet at the same time, some of these stories float in and out, leaving little impression. But those that land leave a profound impact. In “Mitzvah,” he paints a portrait of modern Tel Aviv, where an unnamed teenage narrator is high on the drug Ecstasy and headed to the beach hoping to pick up a female tourist. He gets waylaid when asked to complete a minyan at an Orthodox synagogue. “And praying is super easy,” the character notes. “Much easier than talking to girls.”

In a post-October 7 story, “Intention,” the reader encounters Yehiel-Nachman, a simple, devout Jew who spends his life praying, until that day’s carnage breaks something in him. “I no longer have faith,” he tells his rabbi. “Before I remove my yarmulke and shear my sidelocks, I have come to say goodbye.” Ultimately, Yehiel-Nachman comes face-to-face with God, who doesn’t appear to understand the human before him.

In challenging meekness and blind faith, “Intention” invokes “Bontshe the Silent,” perhaps the best-known story of Yiddish master I.L. Peretz. When Bontshe gets to heaven, he is offered anything he wants. He asks for a buttered roll, drawing incredulity from the angels. Likewise, Yehiel-Nachman, who spends his life praying rather than doing, prays that the cashier at the supermarket will fall in love with him, even though he has never spoken to her.

In “Autocorrect,” the title story, busy CEO Yuvi berates his father, whom he also employees at his company. By the end of that day, his father has been killed in a car crash. Like in the film Groundhog Day, the narrator wakes up and the day has started over, and he verbally lashes his father anew. Until something in his heart cracks. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. I’m just stressed out from all the hassles with this deal,” Yuvi says to his father. And with those words, the time loop is broken. “Yuvi hugged his father really tight, and his father, surprised by the hug, said, ‘Give it a break, kiddo. It’s not like I’m going to Mars. I’ll see you in the office in half an hour.’ And Yuvi, instead of answering, kept on hugging.”

Maybe an asteroid is headed straight for us. Maybe AI is coming for our consciousness. Or maybe not. Perhaps as we head into the High Holidays, the most important thing we can do is find that moment of redemption, tell the people we love that we’re sorry and hold them tight.

Bryan Schwartzman is a writer living outside Philadelphia. Follow his work on his website.