Study Guide

This Is Where I Leave You Chapter 1

Chapter 1

We open on Judd Foxman, our humble narrator. He's on the phone with his sister, Wendy, and she has bad news: their father, Mort, has died.
Although Mort was an atheist, Wendy says that he requested that the family perform the seven-day Jewish mourning ritual called "shiva" in his honor.
Mort had been diagnosed with stomach cancer a year and a half earlier. By the end, "his broad shoulders [were] reduced to skeletal knobs" (1.20).
Wendy tells Judd that the funeral is tomorrow, and Judd needs to drive to the family home in Elmsbrook in the morning.

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