Forgery of the Month Club express­es com­pelling themes in Jew­ish life: Alien­ation, Race, Loss, Iden­ti­ty and Redemp­tion. When Alexan­der expe­ri­ences the alien­ation of his father as a child in Chica­go in the 1960’s, he embraces a com­mu­ni­ty of out­casts wel­comed by his moth­er. Her moral free-fall from a mid­dle-class, Jew­ish fam­i­ly in Min­neapo­lis, to a crim­i­nal lifestyle among pari­ahs began a decade ear­li­er when her father died when she was 14. While James McBride’s The Col­or of Water nar­rat­ed the life of a Black man raised as a law-abid­ing Bap­tist by both a moth­er and a father, reveal­ing at its end his Jew­ish roots, in Forgery of the Month Club the sim­i­lar­i­ties end with race. As a Black child, Alexan­der attends Hebrew school, has lit­tle con­tact with his father and who, as a young man, col­lab­o­rates with his moth­er in ille­gal and eccen­tric schemes. After Alexan­der final­ly leaves Chica­go for a law-abid­ing life in Cal­i­for­nia with the woman he loves, Alexan­der returns to Torah when his infant daugh­ter must under­go numer­ous surgeries.