A debut that details, with wisdom and grace, the inevitable tensions between the comfort of community and the need for individual freedom, as a young widow and convert moves into a close-knit Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and becomes an unwitting catalyst for change. The Orthodox families of Memphis, Tennessee, are as proud of their century-old southern roots as they are of their Jewish heritage. They all live in the same neighborhood, attend the same synagogue, and educate their children at the same schools. Members of the older generation like Mrs. Levy, the community’s matriarch as well as its eyes and ears, are intent on preserving the old rules. But younger matrons like Naomi Eisenberg yearn for more freedom, and the teenagers, especially Shira Feldman, are feeling rebellious. The story of the year that follows Batsheva’s arrival with five-year-old daughter Ayala is related by the surprisingly effective “we” of the Ladies Auxiliary. An artist who found the spiritual home she’d been seeking in Judaism, Batsheva comes to Memphis because her late husband Benjamin had lived there and she wants Ayala to have the same warm and secure childhood he had. Beguiled by Batsheva’s enthusiasm and fresh response to rituals and holidays that for them are now sterile and onerous routines, the Ladies are at first friendly and welcoming. That changes, however, when Batsheva starts teaching art to the high-school girls and becomes their mentor and confidant. The women are also suspicious of her friendship with the rabbi’s son, Yosef, who’s taking a year off from his rabbinical studies. When Shira Feldman runs away with her gentile boyfriend and Yosef decides not to become a rabbi, the Ladies blame Batsheva and suggest she leave. Wise Mimi, the Rabbi’s wife, helps them finally accept both Batsheva and the changes the community needs if it is to survive. An impressive debut, up there on that high middle ground the Victorians made their own.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-393-04814-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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