Rare Stuff (Paperback or Softback)

The new literary novel Rare Stuff takes readers on a multilayered, mysterious journey through a series of interlocking clues. An intriguing search for a missing person moves through real and magically real universes in New York, Chicago, and glass houses under the sea constructed by Yiddish-speaking whales desperate to save our endangered planet. The unusual story touches on grief, love, and precarity leavened with hope.

Set in the mid-90s, Rare Stuff tells the story of Sidney Zimmerman, a slightly lost white-Jewish photographer working on an infinite series of portraits of interracial couples. After the death of her father, novelist/rare book librarian Aaron, Sid and her Black-Jewish Guadeloupean Melville scholar boyfriend follow a series of wacky clues Aaron irritatingly left in a suitcase to lead them to the solution of the mysterious disappearance of Sid’s whale-enthusiast mother 18 years earlier.

Aaron also left a manuscript, included as a novel-within-the-novel, set in an underwater universe and sporting his wild ideas that his wife had been adopted by whales.

“Yiddish-speaking whales, a suitcase packed with secrets, and one young woman’s desperate attempt to find answers. The novel alternates among Sid’s perspective, the long-suffering André’s perspective, and chapters from Aaron’s unpublished manuscript featuring Yiddish-speaking whales trying to save the world from environmental collapse. Kaplan packs a lot into her novel and while the novel’s ambitious scope could easily have been its downfall, it's saved by descriptions of tender longing for connection and purpose, particularly realized in André’s chapters, as well as a soft, magical tone. A dreamy story with surprising emotional resonance.”
Kirkus Reviews, 5-11-22

About the author

Rare Stuff is the first novel by Brett Ashley Kaplan, author of three non-fiction books on topics related to the Holocaust and Jewish-American literature. She is director of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she is a professor and director of graduate studies for the Program in Comparative and World Literature. Her writing has been published in Salon, Haaretz, The Conversation, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Contemporary Literature, and The Jewish Review of Books among others. Named for Lady Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises, she is at work on a second novel, Vandervelde Downs, about the recovery of Nazi-looted objects found in a Vietnamese refugee center in provincial England.

Editorial reviews

“Like the overstuffed suitcase that Sid Zimmerman finds of her dead father’s stashed away arcana, Rare Stuff holds several things at once—an homage to Melville, a paean to New York City, past and present, and, at the same time, a cri de coeur for preserving the natural life of our planet. It is a must-read!”
David Wright Faladé, author of Black Cloud Rising

“In this richly imagined novel, Brett Ashley Kaplan skillfully and playfully moves between points of view, incorporating journal entries, novel excerpts, book reviews, and nuanced environmental commentary. Following a vivid cast of characters which includes a young photographer documenting interracial couples, a Guadeloupean Jewish Melville scholar, a disappeared amateur cetologist and even Yiddish speaking whales, this inventive novel takes us on a wild adventure from the urban streets of New York’s East Village to the depths of the sea. Tender, confident and bold, Rare stuff brims with vitality.”
Ayelet Tsabari, author of The Art of Leaving

Rare Stuff is the first novel by Brett Ashley Kaplan, author of three non-fiction books on topics related to the Holocaust and Jewish-American literature. She is director of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she is a professor and director of graduate studies for the Program in Comparative and World Literature. Her writing has been published in Salon, Haaretz, The Conversation, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Contemporary Literature, and The Jewish Review of Books among others. Named for Lady Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises, she is at work on a second novel, Vandervelde Downs, about the recovery of Nazi-looted objects found in a Vietnamese refugee center in provincial England.