<p>In an illustrative style that is a thrilling mash-up of Art Spiegelman's deft emotionality, Roz Chast's hilarious neuroses, and the magical spirit of Marc Chagall, <em>A Bintel Brief</em> is Liana Frinck’s evocative, elegiac love letter to the turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants who transformed New York City and America itself.</p><p>A Bintel Brief "A Bundle of Letters"—was the enormously popular advice column of <em>The Forward</em>, the widely read Yiddish language newspaper begun in 1906 New York. Written by a diverse community of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, these letters spoke to the daily heartbreaks and comedies of their new lives, capturing the hope, isolation, and confusion of assimilation.</p><p>Drawn from these letters—selected and adapted by Liana Finck and brought to life in her appealing two-color illustrations—<em>A Bintel Brief</em> is a tour of Lower East Side New York, and includes an imaginative conversation with the Yiddish "Dear Abby," Abraham Cahan, <em>The Forward</em>'s legendary editor and creator of the Bintel Brief column.</p><p>From premarital sex to family politics to struggles with jobs and money, <em>A Bintel Brief</em> is an enlightening look at a segment of America's rich cultural past that offers fresh insights for our own lives as well.</p><p></p>