Start­ing with a pho­to that spent four decades in her father’s wal­let (“Pho­to of Author In Kan­ga­roo Paja­mas”), Judith Baumel shows us new ways of under­stand­ing fam­i­ly and his­to­ry. In this quin­tes­sen­tial­ly mod­ern book, her third, The Kan­ga­roo Girl detects reli­gion at the scene of many crimes: from the great dis­as­ters of the past — Edward I’s edict of expul­sion in 1290, the War Between the States, the cat­a­stro­phes of twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry Europe — to the small calami­ties of Jew­ish Amer­i­can life in the eth­nic neigh­bor­hoods of New York City. The Kan­ga­roo Girl is also a per­son­al book, a med­i­ta­tion on being a daugh­ter and a moth­er, and, in a series of mov­ing ele­gies, what it means to sur­vive loss. Judith Baumel’s love affairs with the visu­al — great build­ings, great paint­ings, great art — and with the mys­ter­ies of lan­guage in great books and great con­ver­sa­tions com­bine in this tes­ta­ment to human inven­tive­ness and resilience.