Eileen Pollack was born and grew up in Liberty, N.Y., the heart of the Jewish Catskills, where her grandparents owned and operated a small hotel. In addition to The Rabbi in the Attic, she is the author of the novel Paradise, New York, also set in the Catskills, Breaking and Entering, and, most recently, A Perfect Life. Eileen’s second collection of stories and novellas, In the Mouth, was named the winner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, in addition to being shortlisted for the Sophie Brody Medal for Jewish literature, chosen as a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Award, and awarded a silver medal in ForeWord Magazine’s 2008 Book of the Year Awards. Eileen has received fellowships from the NEA, the Michener Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. Her novella “The Bris” was chosen to appear in Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King; two other stories have been awarded Pushcart Prizes, and her essay “Pigeons” was selected by Cheryl Strayed for Best American Essays. She divides her time between Manhattan and Ann Arbor, where she teaches on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan.

"The Professor of Immortality is intimate and sweeping, funny and terrifying, and most of all dead-on in its observations of what it means to want to know everything about people we love while still being frightened of what we might find out: it’s a detective story, and a story of motherlove. Eileen Pollack is a splendid writer."

Eileen Pollack was born and grew up in Liberty, N.Y., the heart of the Jewish Catskills, where her grandparents owned and operated a small hotel. In addition to The Rabbi in the Attic, she is the author of the novel Paradise, New York, also set in the Catskills, Breaking and Entering, and, most recently, A Perfect Life. Eileen’s second collection of stories and novellas, In the Mouth, was named the winner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, in addition to being shortlisted for the Sophie Brody Medal for Jewish literature, chosen as a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Award, and awarded a silver medal in ForeWord Magazine’s 2008 Book of the Year Awards. Eileen has received fellowships from the NEA, the Michener Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. Her novella “The Bris” was chosen to appear in Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King; two other stories have been awarded Pushcart Prizes, and her essay “Pigeons” was selected by Cheryl Strayed for Best American Essays. She divides her time between Manhattan and Ann Arbor, where she teaches on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan.

"The Professor of Immortality is intimate and sweeping, funny and terrifying, and most of all dead-on in its observations of what it means to want to know everything about people we love while still being frightened of what we might find out: it’s a detective story, and a story of motherlove. Eileen Pollack is a splendid writer."