BEING JEWISH IN 2025 NEW YORK CITY

In Murray’s series-starting near-future dystopian novel, a middle-aged Jewish Manhattanite seeks love and finds danger.

It’s 2025, and 44-year-old David Stein is searching for a suitable mate on the online dating site JDate after breaking up with his girlfriend of three years. However, due to “the new political climate,” he must get approval from the city’s Department of Health, because of laws put in place to ostensibly make dating “safer.” New York City has passed draconian measures that make it nearly impossible to practice Judaism or Christianity out in the open. During the Second Civil War of 2024, extremists burned down the White House, and a rise in antisemitic violence has made life dangerous for Jewish people nationwide. Nonetheless, David arranges a date in Central Park with a woman named Sue, and they both bring their dogs along. Things start off well enough, but then Sue reveals that she was fired from her job as an educator for teaching banned books. David and Sue hit it off, but they run into a major problem when Sue’s doorman tips her off that the Thought Police are waiting outside her apartment door; they’ve come to arrest her under a brand-new criminal code. The pair manage to flee to Long Island where a woman named Hilda runs a hotel. The Thought Police don’t have jurisdiction in Nassau County, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to infiltrate the area. David and Sue considering fleeing further to Vermont, or teaming up with others who want to stop the ongoing assault on personal liberties in New York City. 

Murray’s brief, straightforward drama wastes little time getting into the story. The descriptions are kept to a minimum throughout: Hilda is described only as “about sixty” with “salt-and-pepper hair”; David’s dog is just “a little white Havanese” that weighs 10 pounds. The political dynamics are kept simple, as well: The villains hate religion, and they’re very clear on this point. Indeed, when Sue and David encounter thugs in Central Park, one announces the name of their group as “Americans Against Religious Worship”; at on other point, it’s mentioned that Christmas trees are routinely burned by anti-Christian extremists. The heroes don’t mince words; as Sue points out, when it seems that she and David are in imminent danger: “I just want this night to be over. It seems like it is lasting forever.” However, there are points when people unnecessarily point out the obvious, as when one man says of the Thought Police: “They are doing everything they can to make us live in fear.” The tone of the story leans toward the fantastical, and it’s a choice that effectively allows readers to consider the sheer chaos of the characters’ environment. The wildness of some plot developments, as when a member of Thought Police is stopped by Sue’s massive Old English Sheepdog-German Shepherd-Great Dane mix, only further serve to illustrate the absurdity of the dystopian world.

A whirlwind adventure that manages to be farcical but also thoughtful.