Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16

Kasher in the Rye is the story of Moshe Kasher as he recalls the ups and downs of growing up when all odds are against you.Both his mother and Father are deaf, but he and brother are hearing. After a rocky marriage, his mother, Bae, finally decides to leave his father behind in New York and move him and his brother to Oakland, California with her mother. His grandma teaches them to never abuse women because she has been abused way to long.As a child Moshe was uncontrollable and was always getting into trouble, so his mom ,doing the only clear thing to do, put him into therapy therapy at age 4, and everything goes downhill from there.When he begins middle school, he is a loner with no friends, until he meets Donny Moon, the king of messer uppers as he puts it. After Donny introduces him to he group of people that will soon be like his second family. he tries drugs for the first time at age 12.He then returns to New York to visit his father. His father is married and with new kids. He lives in sea gate a secluded Chassidic community. he quickly learns that he is nothing like these people and might never be.The rest of his adolescence he struggles with drug and alcohol addictions, repeatedly failing every grade, and getting sent to rehab and psychopathic centers. everything seems like it is never going to change until he begins to realize that this isn't what he wants in his life. he tries to sober up but fails for a while. he has destroyed everything in his life, including his mother who has finally lost hope in him.He finally is able to sober up and get his G.E.D. he then attends UC Santa Barbra and graduates with honors. he patches up things with his mother and grandmother. he helps Donny sober up. He finds out his father has cancer so he goes and visits him, and he finally gets closure with his father, who he had never truly understood. he goes through a spiritual experience while mourning his father.He returns to Oakland and gets a stint as a translator. he gets a job very similar to his own experiences. he translates for a mother who has a troubled son. this experience teaches him that he was never a bad guy and he was finally whole.this book was a really good read. i really enjoyed it because it made me think about the choices i have made in my life and made me realize that its a growing experience, good or bad. That no matter how bad things look, things will get better but you have to fight for them.I truly recommend it to anyone out there.

There were some brilliant moments in this book, to be sure, especially since it's set in Oakland, a fascinating setting that pretty much writes itself -- all one has to do is take it in and live to tell about it. Some decent writing throughout, making this a somewhat pleasurable read, but not worth the price tag, in the end. Much of the most interesting dynamics (such as Moshe and his deaf mother and father) are left under-explored, given less real estate to instead chronicle in detail his drunken and drug-addled excursions with his degenerate friends that really aren't that shocking or interesting at all. He should have just met with the guys from his past who are still alive to bat around "Member When" stories instead of willing this book into existence. I'm sure that he got more out of writing this book than many will get from reading it.Kasher tries to make drinking, pot smoking, and a little LSD use sound like he's murdering babies in Cambodia -- his hook (see title) isn't enough to make a compelling enough memoir for the 350 pages it lives in. This is a fairly dressed-up, but altogether standard collection of stories you'd hear at a rehab center from people who haven't figured out how to tell their story yet. None of the characters are drawn super in-depth or duplicitous enough to make anyone endearing. Nobody to root for, nobody to care about, even Moshe himself.Moshe's cool, aloof persona isn't enough to carry the otherwise meandering narrative, either. He may very well be entertaining enough in person to ramble on about such things and be compelling, but it doesn't translate to the memoir form. Even when he is revealing the most about himself, he does it in such a way that it's more like he's getting it all off his chest than creating a well-crafted narrative that reveals deeper meaning through the meditation and execution of its telling.The ending feels like a frantic tailspin, too. Tries to cover and gloss over a huge amount of ground as well as the catalyst that causes his change in the end in the last 30 pages. Felt a tiny bit cheated.Probably wouldn't read anything else he writes, but I'd still listen to his podcasts, which are entertaining in small doses.SB

This tale from the US translates easily to my British sensitivity because it is written with deep self reflection. What might have been a tale of woe is brought to life with love and laughter. Helps to understand addiction and how deafness can become a gift.

Moshes Lebensgeschichte ist an sich nicht so lustig, aber sie wird durch seine Art des Erzählens zur reinen Freude. Sein Podcast mit Neal Brennan, The Champs, ist auch sehr empfehlenswert!

I can't praise this book enough. Blasted through reading it because I couldn't put it down. I knew some of his story from the champs podcast and his stand up so I went in with high expectations which were exceeded.

Really interesting story, taught me a lot about kids who don't fit in and why they do the things they do

Really nice to read, really interesting to get in the mind of someone I'd find "crazy". I loved that book. (sfbe)