Itsik Malpesh is a poet and a dreamer who writes endlessly about his true love, Sasha, whom he has yet to meet. When Itsik's poems get him into trouble in czarist Russia, he begins an odyssey -- with a picture of his beloved Sasha in his coat. Her image stays with him as he labors at a small print shop in Odessa and through a long, hazardous passage to America. And it keeps him company until he settles in New York's garment district. In fact, Sasha stays with Itsik until the eve of his first public appearance as a poet, when she appears in person, as if by magic. But their happiness together is short-lived -- Sasha leaves him before the birth of their first child
Years later, a young man in Boston who toils at preserving Yiddish books responds to an urgent call from New York, where he meets the elderly Malpesh, in need of a translator for his life story. In weaving together Itsik's tale of colorful characters, the two stumble upon an unlikely connection neither could have foreseen. A tale of love -- of homeland, a new country, a girl, and a culture -- Songs for the Butcher's Daughter is a novel about the way history is captured for the ages through the lives and words of seemingly "average" men.

Songs for the Butcher's Daughter by Peter Manseau. (2008, September 9). Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2214742.Songs_for_the_Butcher_s_Daughter.

This is a really special book, in the vein of History of Love. It is written by a catholic (son of a former nun and a still-priest!!) Peter Manseau was turned on to Yiddish by an African American pastor, and has turned his love for the ancient , dying language into a poetic story. See the Jeff Sharlat (?) review in Goodreads for a more personal background write-up, he is friends with the author. He also gives background into the history of Yiddish lit, and the efforts to keep the language alive.

The story is very engaging, and tells the love story of a boy in Russia who eventually winds up in America. It is NOT heavy and depressing, but quick moving and lighthearted. The novel has a predictable, not trite, and yet tear inducing ending. ( )

I won't summarize the plot, which has been done by others, but I found this to be an unusual but very interesting story and very well written. The book has two protoganists: the first, who, like the author, is not Jewish but becomes fascinated by Yiddish and almost by accident becomes caretaker of a Yiddish library. The second is an aged Yiddish poet, Itsik Malpesh, self-styled as the "last Yiddish poet in America," whose memoir the first is translating, whose story within the story is a remarkable tale spanning the time from life in Kishinev, Russia, to the "present" time in Baltimore. It is a sensitive portrayal of human folly and passion, from the pogrom into which he was born through WWII, until the present. Although some events seem unbelievable, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and this work of fiction embodied a strain of great truths. ( )

I liked this book for what I learned about people coming to the US to avoid pogroms in Russia. The writing was ok, not great, and a lot of the book was unbelievable, but I thought it was worth it for what I learned. The author showed a warmth for his characters. ( )

Although I was disappointed by the ending, I loved the rest of this book. ( )