The Matchmaker Loses by a Nose: and Other Short Stories

This book is a collection of 39 short stories and essays that will enlighten you about the
author’s personal life, his family’s past, and other hilarious adventures. The contents
of the book are divided into seven sections with the first section containing short
stories about his father, David Gellis, an immigrant European tailor. The second
section describes various stages of his sister Barbara’s life, who somehow inherited
the ‘wild’ gene and constantly got herself into trouble. The section about the author’s
past covers his chaotic life as a child living in a small house behind the family dry
cleaning establishment, his years of medical school and residency, and unusual events
during his private practice of plastic surgery. Farcical times with his young friends are
recreated. Later in life, even while practicing medicine, Dr. Gellis would substitute
teach in the public school system, creating hilarious stories. Narratives, describing his
Brooklyn, New York, beginnings including family and friends, are brought to light in
the fourth chapter that showcase his grandfather, a Kosher butcher, and the author’s
mother, Rose, a very defiant 4-year-old. Within the fift h section are stories of events in
Flint, Michigan, especially an unusual encounter with the Detroit Mafia’s The Purple
Gang in the 1930’s. Very interesting chance meetings the author had with famous
athletes, Muhammad Ali and Tiger Woods, are covered in the sixth section. Finally,
on an academic level, the author discusses his favorite sayings and idioms with their
origins, along with a poem/prayer called “Family.” There is obviously something for
everyone in this entertaining collection of short stories.