Camp Jeff

“Somewhere in the Catskills there’s a camp, Camp Jeff. The place is named for Jeffrey Epstein, not that Jeffrey Epstein, this is the good Jeffrey Epstein, though the bad one’s not entirely irrelevant to this story. Tova Reich’s newest novel is a raucous and biting tale of a reeducation camp for alleged sex offenders where doubles and doppelgangers haunt every page. Reich’s verbal blade is sharp and she slashes with it, but not without the sensitivity such incisiveness requires. Camp Jeff is a work in her signature satirical mode: excessive yet unflinching, invested in the humanity that lies deep, sometimes very deep, beneath the cruelty and deceit. Here she offers a portrait of our moment-an unhindered and bold indictment of both #MeToo and therapeutic culture embedded in a deeply considered work of distorted psychological portraiture. Camp Jeff is a trenchant examination of love, faith, and affection in an America hurtling towards self