Jews are known as “people of the book”, and as a lifelong reader, I can definitely say that the Torah, our book, has always featured prominently in my life. As a kid, I enjoyed hearing the weekly portion in Synagogue. It contained way more plot twists and shocking reveals than any novel or TV show. As a teen, I searched for meaning. As an adult, I wondered where all the women were – why my POV was not as represented as I would have chosen – and learned to distinguish between the actual text and the views superimposed upon it by commentators. It’s been a long, and sometimes troubled, relationship. Something always pulls me back, and each time I am surprised. Which is why I couldn’t resist The Midwives Escape by Maggie Anton.
Starting from the exodus, and spanning numerous books of the Torah including the beginning of Joshua, the novel tells the story of the forty years the Jews spent wandering in the dessert. However, the author is clear that this is simply a piece of well researched fiction. Numerous Torah portions are glossed over as they wouldn’t contribute much to plot, and the choice of POV is as essential here as it is for any piece of literature. The narrators are actually two Egyptian/Hittite women who were not Hebrews, but chose to leave Egypt with them anyway. This large group leaving Egypt together with the newly freed Hebrews is the subject of many a mysterious midrashic commentary on the Torah where they are referred to as the “erev Rav” (mixed multitude) and often blamed for numerous ills in the dessert.
Side note for the hilarity of one of the midwives bemoaning the tenth plague and wondering ‘what they ever did to the Hebrews’ to deserve this, when just a few lines up she notes her husband regularly sexually abused the slave women. What did we do indeed? (Turns out she’s just as happy to be rid of the guy as readers are, but still. Oblivious much?).
Underscoring the work of fiction aspect here, one of the midwives is named Shifra and her aunt, who is also a midwife, is named Puah. These names are given in the bible as the names of the midwives who refused Pharaoh’s orders to kill male Hebrew children. However, many Torah commentators state that these are aliases for the Hebrew women Miriam and Yocheved – Moses’ sister and mother. Did I mind? No, because there are about a million commentators, often contradictory, and as we said this is fiction. So again, I remind readers to treat this as a novel and not a religious text.
In general, the mixed multitude has a bad rap. They get blamed for a lot by commentators, including being a bad influence on the Hebrews and instigating numerous complaints and revolts. The Midwives’ Escape takes the opposite approach. The mixed multitude, are presented as so immaculate they are practically saints (if Judaism had saints, which it doesn’t). They look down at the Hebrews and are shocked each time they misbehave or fail to trust and Moses. They are depicted as having perfect faith. If I’m honest – and I always am – this got a little annoying. I suspect the real truth is somewhere in between these two extremes. Both groups likely had their malcontents and idol worshipers, and both groups were likely prejudiced each towards the other. It would have made for nuanced reading to acknowledge the complexity of human nature across both groups and allow that grey area to grow and blossom in ways that are so scarce in the actual bible.
Where the novel succeeds is not in providing new ideas about the mixed multitude, but rather in giving familiar stories an emotional frame on which to rest. The titular midwives are a mother and daughter, and their family dynamics grab the readers attention and let us view these happenings through an entirely different lens. Plus, as members of the mixed multitude, they allow us to observe the various cultures of the time, as well as the survival skills needed in the dessert – from how to press oil to birthing a baby. The details are rich and provide context for what exactly those forty years might have looked like. Another side bonus for including some of the wilder midrashim – like how each male dug his own grave on the ninth of Av and slept in it, unsure if he would wake up in the morning.
There are some interesting choices made regarding Moses, Aharon, and Miriam that mash together some more obscure commentaries with the authors own inventions. They help make the plot more emotionally relevant, and as a woman I enjoyed the greater focus given to Miriam, but this is not a strict textual reading. Remember the framework – fiction not biblical scholarship. If that is going to bother you, just pick a different book and let the rest of us enjoy the story in peace.
The Midwives’ Escape actually ends with a sample from the next book, and I am both more excited and more apprehensive about this next story. The narrator is one of my favorite biblical characters – Serach BaT Asher the woman who never dies – but it takes place during the book of Judges which I think we can all agree was a pretty messy time. I am hoping for just a tiny bit more kindness towards the newly settled Hebrews than we have seen in The Midwives Escape, but as any writer well knows, this is all a matter of point of view.
Note: BookishlyJewish received an arc of this publication from the publisher.
January 30th 2024, Little, Brown, Books for Young Reader
384 pages
Writers differ in their approaches to handling the COVID 19 pandemic in literature. Many have eschewed mention of the pandemic altogether, preferring to leave their work as an escapist haven for readers. Others have dove in headfirst, going so far as to say that anyone who doesn’t include pandemic references in their work is writing either historical, fantasy, or science fiction. In Just Shy of Ordinary, author A. J. Sass finds the balance in the middle and considers what this time might have meant for the development of kids. COVID is not the focus of the book, but in a way almost served as the inciting incident.
As the story opens, we meet Shai, a nonbinary homeschooler about to transition to public school. This switch, which Shai is hoping helps them get control of their anxiety, can be viewed as a direct result of COVID. During the pandemic Shai’s mother lost her job in the hotel industry. The resulting financial fall out lead to the family moving in with close friends and Shai and their best friend Mille learning via an online program instead of directly from Shai’s mom who had to scramble and learn a new employable skill set. It’s a lot of change to take in, and somewhere along the way Shai starts picking at the hair on their arms to help control the feelings of anxiety and stress. They are hoping that public school, and the associated strict routine, will help them get control of this before anyone else notices.
In one of my favorite parts of the book, Shai has also recently come out as nonbinary and this is repeatedly shown to NOT be the cause of their anxiety or mental health issues. Actually, for Shai, owning their identity is a good and helpful thing. However, a new school means new friends and the possibility of coming out to all of them. We watch several characters come out in different ways to the different people in their lives, and the process is both normalized and also shown as never ending – each new person and experience is another choice to make re: how much information is shared and when.
Public school also brings Shai the desire to explore their Jewish heritage as part of an English project. Shai’s mother has herself chosen to be less observant despite being heavily active in her reform temple before college, and Shai can’t help wonder if that decision is directly related to their birth. Especially when their mother presents an odd sort of resistance to Shai’s growing connection to Judaism. One of the things I have noticed in Sass’s work, is that parents are often shown as human rather than perfect. Especially as relates to religion. Shai’s mother gives what I perceived as flimsy excuses for Shai not being allowed to explore certain aspects of Judaism despite a Rabbi literally inviting them today to do so. It causes Shai not a small amount of frustration, alienation over “not being Jewish enough,” and worsens the picking. All of which is exceedingly realistic. As is the eventual spilling of secrets on both sides when Shai finally gets the help they need.
With the worst of the pandemic over, but still ever present in hand sanitizer and choices to avoid huge public gatherings by Shai’s friends, the book can instead focus on the sequela of COVID on our youth’s mental health. For adults, we had decades of a different normal and are now adjusting to a new one. For kids, this mixed up reality is all they have ever known, and it was refreshing to see that explored. It is a choice to show the world as it is, very similar to the choice made to show characters as they are. It’s a nuanced approach, but at a level that can be understood by most MG readers. Because if you know kids, you know they can spot a lie a mile away. This book, to me, felt written from a deep place of truth and I suspect middle schoolers will appreciate that.
We are thrilled to once again be a stop on The Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour. Our Interview features A.J. Sass, and their MG Honor Book Just Shy Of Ordinary, which was a wonderful assignment because it will be our third book from this author reviewed on the website. Which means we got to meander our way through talking about A LOT.
BookishlyJewish: In JUST SHY OF ORDINARY, Shai makes a big transition from homeschool to public school. I think a lot of readers who made similar transitions over the COVID pandemic will find this extremely relatable. Did you have some home school experience that you drew from?
A.J. Sass: Kind of yes, kind of no. I was never homeschooled in the traditional sense, but a month before the end of my fall semester of 9th grade, my parents relocated the family from Georgia to Minnesota. Because my new school was on a nine-month academic schedule rather than a semester system, and because I hadn’t yet taken my finals at my school in Georgia, I spent two months studying and playing catch-up at home on my own, then had a proctor give me my finals so I could get grades for my Georgia high school classes.
I’m not sure if that counts, to be honest, but this, plus the fact that I’ve known several fellow figure skaters who were homeschooled to better fit with their athletic training schedules, always made me interesting in exploring the homeschooling experience in literature (it gets mentioned in ANA ON THE EDGE as well, although only in passing since that story took place over the summer).
I did a lot of my research via online sources to develop a deeper understanding of various homeschool practices and routines. I was also very fortunate that one of my editors, Caitlyn Averett, was homeschooled all the way through high school. Since Shai is choosing to enter public school not due to their dissatisfaction with their previous academic setup but for other reasons, I wanted to ensure I portrayed homeschooling in a positive light. Caitlyn was an invaluable resource and we had some great discussions on the positive aspects of homeschooling throughout the editorial process.
BookishlyJewish: Speaking of COVID, a lot of adult novels are simply pretending it never happened, but in JUST SHY OF ORDINARY it actually appears to be one of the triggers of Shai’s anxiety, and leads to a lot of changes in their life. How did you decide to include the pandemic in your story?
A.J. Sass: It’s certainly tricky to decide whether or not to pull from real life events when writing fiction, especially for younger readers. Also, given the way publishing works, I wasn’t entirely sure a pandemic story would even be relevant by the time this manuscript released. But I’d spent most of 2020 writing ELLEN OUTSIDE THE LINES and the first half of 2021 writing CAMP QUILTBAG, both stories that involve characters who are exploring new environments (and in Ellen’s case, an entirely new country). It felt quite surreal to be writing stories like that while I was at home sheltering in place. And I’d heard from friends with kids about how difficult it was to go from in-person schooling to virtual and sometimes back again, with no guarantee things would stay safe enough to keep schooling in-person.
I thought about writing a book set in the midst of the pandemic, but by the time Shai’s story started to form in my head, the first vaccine had been released in 2021. There was this feeling of hope at the outset. My partner and I even took a road trip (we weren’t comfortable hopping on a plane yet). One of the things that stayed with me from that time was defining what “normal” meant to me, an author who debuted when no in-person events were taking place, who never got to meet a reader face to face until March 2022, a year and a half after I debuted. I also heard from friends and acquaintances about how difficult the past two years had been, especially for those whose jobs required an in-person presence.
It was around this time that Shai’s story became clearer. Before I knew anything else about the story, I knew I wanted to set it in the small-town Midwest of my childhood. I kept coming back to Minocqua, Wisconsin. Known as the island city, it was a place I loved visiting on trips to see my grandparents in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Definitely a tourist town. But what if tourism slowed when businesses shut down in the middle of the pandemic, I wondered. How would folks who lived in a place like that year-round survive if their main form of income dried up?
That’s when my focus started to shift to a post-pandemic world and how a character with severe anxiety would handle (or not, as it were) the changes taking place around them. It allowed me to reference changes I’d noticed during my own pandemic experiences, like the barriers that were still up in Thierry’s hair salon between the chairs and how some people were still wearing masks, from Shai’s perspective.
The world is full of uncertainties. I dealt with different ones when I was Shai’s age, but I wanted Shai’s story to resonate with readers now. The pandemic wasn’t a large part of this story by any means, but it felt important to give a nod to the readers who might have struggled during it, as well as those who are still grappling with how uncertain the future feels.
BookishlyJewish: There’s significant tension between Shai and their mother when they decide to explore Judaism. As an Orthodox Jew, I actually had no problem with Shai exploring any aspect of Judaism they wanted to, but Shai’s mother tells them that some practices are “closed” to those outside a Jewish community. I wondered if Shai’s mother was actually concerned Shai’s exploration might be seen as offensive to some, or if she was finding an excuse to slow Shai down a bit for her own reasons.
A.J. Sass: My intentions for Shai’s mom’s reactions were definitely more of the latter. This is a conversation I’ve had with an authenticity reader, some of the editors who worked with me on this manuscript, and also readers. Their interpretations of the mom’s responses were varied. Some felt that Shai’s mom was acting too worried about offending the Jewish community when Shai, as a halachic Jew, should have been welcome to explore Judaism’s culture and practices. Others saw it more as Shai’s mom having a trauma response that happened to initially occur within her former synagogue– a few members were unhappy with a choice she made and, as a result, she left the community.
I thought about changing some of these scenes to make it clearer that Shai’s mom didn’t think Shai learning about Judaism was a bad thing, but if I were an intuitive but anxious 13 year old like Shai, that’s immediately what I would’ve jumped to if I’d been having the same conversation. It felt authentic to my own experiences with anxiety to include this uncertainty as to their mother’s reaction to Shai’s questions, which later get clarified.
Life isn’t always straightforward. People don’t always make sense. And reactions they have to upsetting events in their past might be interpreted by others in a variety of ways until the person clarifies and ultimately sets the record straight. If the scenes where conversations between Shai and their mom occur spark discussion among readers, I’m glad for it.
BookishlyJewish: Coming out is an important part of the plot for several characters, and we observe Shai do it twice. What was your aim in those scenes?
A.J. Sass: When I was younger, I assumed coming out was a one-and-done type of process – I’d figure out who I am, then tell everyone, and that would be that. In reality, I spent years exploring my identity. It was a long process and I tried out several different labels (and names!) before finding ones that resonate most with me.
For Shai, the coming out process is also ongoing. They know they’re nonbinary but have only told their closest friends and family by the start of the story. Starting public school introduces Shai to new friends, and when one of them shares that she is a lesbian, it makes Shai feel comfortable enough to share that they are pansexual … but that doesn’t say anything about their gender, which is something Shai struggles more with figuring out how to share. Of course, Shai’s new friend has different challenges associated with her identity – she’s not sure her family or everyone at school will be supportive. Shai’s long-time best friend is also going through a coming out process of his own, which – you guessed it – is also unique to him.
My goal in depicting various characters coming out in different ways is to reflect the diversity of experiences within the queer community. Not everyone has the same coming out story and sometimes you have to come out many times, whether it’s to new people or to those you’ve already come out to when you realize something new about yourself. Ultimately, only you know who you are and it’s okay if that changes as you gain a better understanding of yourself over time. There is no one right way to be nonbinary, or pansexual, queer, or otherwise. That’s one of the wonderful aspects of our community.
BookishlyJewish: Poetry plays a significant role in JUST SHY OF ORDINARY, and Shai mentions reading some novels in verse. Any chance we might see a novel in verse from you someday?
A.J. Sass: I hope so! I’ve actually started writing a middle grade story in verse not too long ago, and it felt so freeing to write in this style (verse novels are also what helped get me out of my initial pandemic reading rut back in 2020). It hasn’t been acquired yet, but I do hope to be able to incorporate different writing styles into my stories in the future including verse.
For the time being, I’ll be content with the upcoming launch of my debut picture book, SHABBAT IS … (Little, Brown, 9/2/25), which is a much shorter-form style than I usually write. I also look forward to seeing a poem in a picture book anthology I contributed to called NO BRAIN THE SAME release from Charlesbridge in 2026. My poem focuses on Lydia X. Z. Brown’s autism advocacy.
BookishlyJewish: A lot of kids are facing significant anxiety and mental health issues, and like Shai they are afraid to ask for help. How did you choose this as focus for the book, and how has it been received by the public?
A.J. Sass: I grew up struggling with severe anxiety that only worsened as I got older. In elementary and middle school, it was mostly social anxiety; I found it difficult to make friends or understand social cues, which made sense after I received my Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis as an adult. When I entered high school, I was flagged as academically gifted and went on to skip into 10th grade near the end of my 9th grade year after my family relocated from Georgia to Minnesota. I finished 10th grade in a handful of months and then enrolled in college courses as an 11th grader, effectively completing my AA degree around the same time I graduated high school.
My family was proud of my academic achievements and I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed at any cost, which only compounded my anxiety. My own personal story always felt really complicated to share (it’s complicated to explain in this response now!), but I wanted to explore the experience of appearing outwardly successful while struggling to hold things together internally within a novel.
Shai’s story developed from this desire, and it seems to have been well received. A few folks have mentioned that there’s a lot going on in this story, and there is! Not only is Shai dealing with anxiety and coming out, they want to explore more about their Jewish heritage which they can tell is making their mom uncomfortable, plus navigating their first crush, public school, skipping a grade, and more. Real life doesn’t sit still for you to focus on one thing before moving on to the next, and that’s what I try to convey in my books.
BookishlyJewish: Shai’s friendship with Mille changes over time, but I found it meaningful that it was Shai’s oldest friend that finally ensures they get the help they need. Did you always know it would play out that way?
A.J. Sass: I always knew I wanted Mille to support Shai and have them realize that asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of, but I didn’t know how he would do that until fairly late in the editorial process.
That’s because my early drafts of this book were a complete mess.
Every book is different, but to date, Shai’s story has been my most time-consuming. For some perspective, I underwrote ANA ON THE EDGE and had to add almost 20,000 words by the final draft. I overwrote ELLEN OUTSIDE THE LINES and cut 15,000 words during developmental and line edits. CAMP QUILTBAG, on the other hand, was a joy to write and had minimal edits from start to finish.
Honestly, I thought I’d leveled up after CAMP QUILTBAG, that my next book would be fairly simple.
Ha.
JUST SHY OF ORDINARY was a complete rewrite between draft one and two. So, while the novel’s general vibes, so to speak, were there from the beginning, its execution changed drastically. That’s part of the magic of revising under the guidance of a fantastic editor. In earlier drafts, Mille chose to come out to Shai much sooner in the story, so the scene where they argue outside the fabric shop, which ultimately leads to the climax where Shai’s mom learns about Shai’s picking, didn’t initially exist.
When I received my first edit letter after submitting my initial draft, I sat with it for quite a while, mulling it over, trying to make the pieces fall into place more seamlessly than the disjointed way in which they were currently arranged. With my deadline fast approaching, I still didn’t have everything figured out, but I knew one thing: I needed to start from the ground up. So I opened a new Word doc and got to work, taking notes as I went along about realizations I was making during the re-drafting process. One of them was how Mille would help Shai, Now, I think that is among the strongest scenes in the story. The process wasn’t easy, but it felt worth it (but if my next book’s revisions could be less work, I wouldn’t complain!).
BookishlyJewish: One of the particular things I enjoy about several of your books is that you manage to write characters who have financial struggles, but that still have lives full of joy. Is this something you do consciously, or did it just happen organically?
A.J. Sass: It’s absolutely part of my brainstorming process, because a character’s home life or their family’s financial situation can determine how they react to situations and conversations in a story. This is quite apparent in ANA ON THE EDGE, where main character Ana lives in a small studio apartment in San Francisco with her mother and is acutely aware of the high cost to maintain her elite level of training as a figure skater. That was informed by my lived experiences as a figure skater moving up the ranks of the sport, as well as my knowledge of the sacrifices many families make to support their kids’ athletic dreams.
Since I wanted JUST SHY OF ORDINARY to take place in a somewhat post-pandemic world, and I am aware of how many people needed to pivot their careers to make ends meet when in-person work wasn’t possible, I decided to explore the loss of Shai’s mom’s job and the need to move in with family friends as the primary source of Shai’s anxiety. It’s not something Shai can do anything about, but it’s at the back of their mind a lot and determines some of the choices they make throughout the novel.
For example, after Shai’s mom lost her job at a local hotel, she started learning web design online to create a new source of income she could earn from home. Shai tries to emulate this in their decision to create a new normal by choosing to attend public school, among other things. They also know how hard their mom is working on her web design projects, with the hopes of one day receiving a full-time job offer, which is another reason Shai is initially hesitant to share with their mom that they’re struggling – Shai believes they don’t currently have enough time or money for a therapist so they decide to fix their problem on their own.
BookishlyJewish: Is there a particular message you wanted readers to take away from this book?
A.J. Sass: One message that I hope is conveyed strongly in Shai’s story is that no matter how bad a situation you feel like you’re in, it is only temporary. There’s a phrase in Hebrew, גם זה יעבור, which roughly translates as “this too shall pass.” It can have both positive and negative connotations, depending on how you interpret it, but I tend to focus on the positive. I say it whenever I’m struggling with something in my life.
The bad moments are temporary. Acknowledging them, then working to make things better, is how we can arrive at good moments – and often this is accomplished by asking for help or leaning on your friends, family, or other members within your community.
BookishlyJewish: I always end by asking if you have a Jewish book to recommend to our readers?
A.J. Sass: I have admittedly been in a bit of a reading slump lately, so I hope it’s okay to answer this by sharing some Jewish books I’m excited to get to read in the future:
Picture Book: Tov is Good by Richard Ho (Chronicle, fall 2026)
A. J. Sass (he/they) is the award winning and critically acclaimed author of books for young readers, including Just Shy of Ordinary, Camp QUILTBAG, co-written with Nicole Melleby, Ellen Outside the Lines, and Ana on the Edge. Many of Andrew’s books have also been Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections.
Andrew’s debut picture book, Shabbat Is …, illustrated by Noa Kelner, releases on 9/2/25 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. He is also a contributor to the upcoming anthologies Athlete is Agender (5/13/25) and No Brain the Same (summer 2026). His short stories and essays have appeared in the This Is Our Rainbow, Allies, and On All Other Nights anthologies.
When he’s not writing, Andrew figure skates, tinkers with typewriters, and travels as much as possible. He divides his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and northwestern Vermont with his husband. Visit him online at sassinsf.com and follow him @matokah on Bluesky and Instagram.
Like many Jewish women, I know the name Doña Gracia Nasi. I’m vaguely familiar with the fact that she was a Sephardic Jew of note, but I was embarrassingly unaware of the details of her life until this year when a few books featuring her bio sketch appeared on my TBR. By far, the cutest of these books is Doña Gracia Saves Worlds written by Bonni Goldberg and illustrated by Alida Massari, because it is a picture book.
Like most of my picture book reviews, I tried to gather a small flock of children to help me take Doña Gracia Saved Worlds out for a test drive. The littlest among them had some difficulty following that “Doña” is a title and not a name, and that Gracia ages over the course of the book. It became a bit of a Where’s Waldo adventure as she searched for Doña Gracia on every page. She was also a big fan of Doña Gracia’s hats. At the end, she asked to take the book home wit her, which is always a good sign. (Yes, permission was granted. Who can refuse a kid a book?)
The slightly older kids only interrupted the reading once to ask questions, and generally seemed engaged. They had many thoughts about crypto Jews and what life was like in different countries at the time. Plus, they too liked the hats.
As the grown up reader, be prepared for questions and get your voice ready. This isn’t a board book. There’s enough text on the page that smaller kids will interrupt, and bigger ones might want to hear it a few times to parse the different themes. The somewhat muted color scheme suits the story and time period well, and I learned something about a historical figure right along with the kids. Bonus: I also very much enjoyed the hats.
Doña Gracia Saved Worlds is a good book for story time or circle reads. It will be equally useful at home or in a classroom. Discussion from all the kids was lively, and I, the adult, was not bored. Which is always a picture book win.
Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine
by: Mikhail Goldis
Translated by: Marat Grinberg
October 15, 2024 Academic Studies Press
Review by: Valerie Estelle Frankel
A compelling new book shows post-Holocaust life in the Ukraine through the day-to-day struggles of one Jewish lawyer. Mikhail Goldis (1926-2020) worked as a detective and district attorney for 30 years in Ukraine and wrote these memoirs in safety, after immigrating to the US in 1993. Many modern readers have no idea the constant threat someone in his position was under and will thrill at the suspense and danger. As the book reveals in one critical scene:
“Soon thereafter my boss called me in. He told me that he had received a directive from the regional party committee to remove me from the regional attorney’s office because I was a Jew; he also swore me to secrecy. The higher-ups couldn’t care less about my successes and professional abilities. They were administering their policy of frenzied antisemitism, incomprehensible even to such faithful servants of the regime as the region’s chief attorney.“
The contrast between big-city and rural, the unwelcome attentions of the Soviet government—all complicate the characters’ lives. Criminals sometimes do their acts on behalf of the party, strongly complicating matters. Meanwhile, those who want justice must often struggle through prejudice, a callous government, and many other hurdles to be heard—an increasing problem in society today. Corruption and cruelty are common, as are surprise revelations. Through it all, Goldis struggles to defend the lives and dignity of his fellow Jews. Likewise, the memoir breathes life into their individual struggles, memorializing them against a background of neglect, indifference, and outright cruelty.
The protagonist goes into intense detail, bringing family stories to life—these are intertwined with the dark history of the region, of course. In one tale, the family discovers the remains of children buried twenty years previously—children massacred in Krasyliv during the war. In fact, they were mixed Jewish-Ukranian children shot by the Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators. The echoes of the Holocaust continue, with new relevance for today’s readers as well as the hero of the book. He, in fact, investigates criminals, even as their lives are complicated by the shifting regimes and threats of death. As he concludes, “From the distance of all these years, I think that if a monument were to be erected to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, those words should be engraved on it: ‘And what does the constitution have to do with it?’”
Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney in Soviet Ukraine is published in the Immigrant Worlds and Texts series from Boston’s Academic Studies Press. As such, it shares such vital narratives with the readers of today, showing how much these events influence present reality and bringing the individual journeys into prominence. The translation is smooth and easy to follow. Plenty of photographs bring the distant world to clear, vivid life. This will appeal to readers of memoirs, mysteries, detective thrillers, and stories of survival through adversity. Mikhail Goldis’ amazing story has finally reached the English-speaking world, and it’s astounding.
A few weeks ago we reviewed NEXT STOP, the debut dystopian novel from Benjamin Rsenick. The book was challenging, and moving, but left me with so many questions. I decided to attempt emailing the author and asking for an interview. And he said yes! Below are the answers to my burning questions, and hopefully some of your too.
BookishlyJewish:I actually read NEXT STOP over the course of one Shabbat, but it stayed with me for much longer. When did the concept of this story first come to you?
Benjamin Resnick: I started on a first draft in the summer of 2021—toward the tail end of the pandemic when life for a lot of people was starting to get back to normal but wasn’t all the way there yet. My wife and I have two fairly young children, about Michael’s age in Next Stop, and being stuck at home with young kids through Covid was obviously its own specific kind of challenge. As I began writing I was thinking a lot about parenting under difficult and unpredictable circumstances and about how we try to keep our kids relatively happy and relatively safe regardless of what is going on in the world
There are, of course, many parents who contend daily with challenges far worse than what my wife and I faced as middle-class American Jews during lockdown—we had access to resources and our health and the health of our loved ones remained intact and I am very grateful for that. But it wasn’t easy, to say the least. So that whole experience was still very present for me when I started thinking about Next Stop. I knew I wanted to tell a story about parenting through a drastic disruption and about how our routines (and the assumptions that they are built around) are really very fragile. That is fundamentally true all of the time for everyone (and as a pulpit rabbi I often have a window into that reality), but I also think, historically, it has been particularly true for Jews, in large part because of antisemitism. And I wanted to tell a story about that as well.
BookishlyJewish:We get a very detailed and harrowing description of Ethan’s journey across town during a time of violence, and this served to both humanize him and also show how very tiny and powerless he is in the grand scope of things. However, when it is Ella’s turn to fight her way back to the Pale and rejoin her family, we see her triumphant return but have no idea what led to it. This made her feel superhuman to me. I am wondering if these choices were intentional?
Benjamin Resnick: What a great question! Ethan’s journey across town is one of my favorite episodes in the book. It was inspired, in part, by this wonderful section in Ursula LeGuinn’s magnificent The Left Hand Of Darkness, during which the two main characters go on a perilous journey across a vast, icy terrain. It’s phenomenally gripping and beautifully written and I guess I’m drawn to road stories in general.
You’re actually only the second reader to ask, specifically, about what Ella had to do in order to get back. In my mind, it’s likely that her journey looked a lot like Ethan’s—she made it back through a combination of determination and good fortune. The reason why I didn’t include it in the book—a fairly prosaic one—is simply that I thought it would be repetitive for readers, i.e. we already accompanied Ethan on one long journey through the city and we didn’t need to accompany Ella on a journey as well. It’s so interesting that, for you, that absence made Ella seem superhuman. I don’t see her that way, necessarily, but I also think that she is tougher than Ethan and there are probably things she would do to get back that he would not. That aspect of her characterization was absolutely intentional.
And she is also Michael’s mother. As close as Ethan and Michael become—and in many ways I see Next Stop as a love story between Ethan and Michael as much as it is a love story between Ethan and Ella—he is not Michael’s father.
BookishlyJewish:As someone who takes the subway to work every day, NEXT STOP has added some interesting feelings to my commute. I am wondering how you chose to feature subways so prominently and what the symbolism is there?
Benjamin Resnick: I don’t take the subway to work everyday anymore, but I’m a New Yorker and I did for many many years. I think a lot about the subway in general—about how it looks and feels and sounds, about the experience of going down in one place and coming up in a place that looks entirely different. It’s just a very unique and, for me, important experience.
Trains are also a pretty overdetermined and (pun intended, I suppose) freighted symbol in the Jewish imagination. Recently they recall the Kindertransport, of course, and also the sealed train cars to the camps.
There are also earlier resonances in midrash—I doubt many readers will think about those but they are present for me. One of them is the very strange and somewhat macabre image of Jewish bones rolling through underground tunnels on their way to Jerusalem for resurrection. Another is the ancient rabbinic idea, expressed in a few different ways, that unlike the people in Plato’s cave allegory (who need to ascend into the light to find truth) Jews find true illumination by exploring the dark depths.
So in my mind the subways are a hopeful symbol, but also a terrifying one.
BookishlyJewish:Obviously the book ends with a lot still unanswered. I won’t ask you to explain the anomaly, or what happened to the “OG Hole” jumpers, but I am curious if you yourself know those answers or if you are as much in the dark as the rest of us.
Benjamin Resnick: I’m not one hundred percent sure, but (quick spoiler alert) I think they might be somewhere down in the tunnels, i.e. in the same place that Ethan, Ella, and Michael go in the last section of the book. In my imagination there is a really big world down there and we really only see a small corner of it. There are probably places you can’t escape from and places that are hidden and inaccessible or that are governed by different kinds of rules.
Or they could just be gone, vanished entirely. I sometimes think about how because of the Holocaust I really know very few Jews who are able to trace their families back more than a couple of generations. Some can, but not many. In an amazing prose poem called “Alphabet of My Dead” Robert Pinsky, who is so brilliant, has a line that goes “X the unknown ancestors of my eight great-grandparents, unseen multitudes who have created my body, thousands of them reaching back into time, tens of thousands, kings and slaves, savages and sages, warriors and rapists, victims and perpetrators.” All of us have these secret, unrecoverable parts of ourselves. Where do they go? What kind of lives did they lead? I’ll never even know their names. There is something haunting about that.
I’ll also say that, symbolically, I think about the anomalies as physical manifestations of antisemitism—a dark presence that we Jews schlep around with us as an eternally haunted and hunted people. That’s not all we are, of course—we’re also a joyful, resilient and endlessly creative people—but schlepping around darkness has been a core part of our story for millenia and it remains so. My overall view of antisemitism—and I’ve said in other places—is that it’s like a monster under the bed. Sometimes it sleeps, but inevitably it wakes up and when it does it wreaks havoc. And in a lot of ways, Next Stop is one long footnote to the line in the Haggadah: “This is the promise: That not only one arose to destroy, but in every generation they arise to destroy us…” So the holes are a way of concretizing that in the story.
But I also think that the persistence of antisemitism—and its protean nature—is mysterious. That’s part of what makes it so scary, almost like Stephen King’s It, which can take many forms. Just recently, for example, several American voices blamed the Jews for the fires in L.A. and at least two groups suggested that their proliferation is the result of American support for Israel and the war in Gaza. That’s a pretty wild move—completely divorced from reality, of course, and deeply unsettling. And if you ask me where those kinds of bizarre ideations come from I’m going to say that honestly I don’t know. Jews have been trying to explain antisemitism for thousands of years and I could offer a few theories, but none of them are really satisfactory, at least not to me. So in that sense I’m as much in the dark as anyone.
BookishlyJewish:I’m never shy about how I mostly avoid horror and other heavy topics – I’m more of an escapist or “Jewish Joy” reader- but I’m glad I made an exception for NEXT STOP. I won’t pretend it didn’t keep me up at night, but it was also deeply moving and laced with moments of joy. Particularly right now, when so much is so uncertain, how did you walk that fine line between despair and hope?
Benjamin Resnick: Some of the most gratifying feedback I’ve received so far—and I’ve gotten it pretty consistently—is that despite a very heavy premise, Next Stop is not a horrific, grim slog. There is a place, perhaps, for gorgeously rendered grim slogs (Cormac McCarthy’s The Road comes to mind) but I didn’t want Next Stop to be like that and for the most part I don’t think that’s how readers have experienced it. To the contrary, I’ve heard from a lot of readers that it moves very quickly and easily, that it pulls them along, and that there is a lightness to the book despite the fact that some pretty terrible things happen to the characters, objectively. That’s been very rewarding to hear because it was a very conscious goal on my part.
In many ways, Next Stop is a domestic story. It’s a love story and story about parenting and those aren’t easy subjects but they are beautiful and consoling ones. Reflecting again on our experience during the pandemic (and this describes the experience of most parents that I know), it was a very difficult and trying time. But it wasn’t unremittingly horrible. We were all together. We laughed, we fought, we watched Tiger King, we built this really cool sukkah on a tiny balcony. My older son learned to read. Like most people I know, I have good memories from that time as well.
And I think life is almost always like that. So we try to spend about a month every summer in Israel. And we went last summer, as usual. When we got back a lot of my congregants, many of whom haven’t yet been since October 7, wanted to know how it felt, what the atmosphere was like, etc. I always said that on one level it was very sad. You couldn’t walk ten feet without a reminder of everything going on. There was and still is a sense of sadness and trauma that pervades everything. But on another level, it was as it always is—a bustling, vibrant place, very much alive and full of people going to work and going to the beach and people out partying and so forth. And that’s normal and probably always is. Even in wartime people go out to eat or to the theatre; they read, laugh, and have children. Right now, for instance, there are people sitting in cafes in L.A. So for me the consoling elements in Next Stop reflect the basic reality that life is a pretty mixed bag, for most of us, most of the time. And it often remains that way even in extreme situations. Writing a book that was only despairing just wouldn’t have felt authentic to me because I don’t experience the world that way. Sometimes I despair. But I don’t only despair. Far from it.
BookishlyJewish:The timing of NEXT STOPs submission and publication is a shining example of what many writers call the “luck” portion of the process (although I realize it feels really awkward to use that term surrounding global tragedies). Do you think the book would have had a different reception if it was submitted at a different time? Do you think it would even have landed with the same publisher?
Benjamin Resnick: I think about these questions all the time. I like to imagine that the book would have found its way into a world without October 7 (it was submitted to my editor just a few days before). But I don’t live in that world so I ultimately don’t know and never really will. The disquieting aspect of my “luck” is also something that I think about constantly. I wrote a book that met the moment in a lot of ways and it was a horrible, tragic moment for our people and it is still ongoing. And I benefited from it in a very real way. I am still struggling to understand that. It haunts me.
BookishlyJewish:Speaking of reception, how has the public been viewing NEXT STOP? Any surprising moments for you?
Benjamin Resnick: So far the reception has been really positive overall and the book seems to have sparked a fair amount of conversation, which is, of course, very rewarding. And most of the reviews (including yours!) have been very nice and have engaged seriously with what I was trying to do.
It’s definitely not a pareve book. I knew when I wrote that it had a pretty strong taste, but maybe I’ve been a little bit surprised by how consistently it engenders strong feelings. I just haven’t gotten that many meh responses—people either seem to really like it or to really not like it. Of course I would prefer that all readers love it, but the fact that it consistently inspires strong reactions of whatever sort is gratifying, in a way.
BookishlyJewish:I was interested to learn you are also a Rabbi, how has your chosen profession impacted your writing?
Benjamin Resnick: Rabbis are storytellers and repositories of stories on many levels. And I often tell people that I basically talk for a living. My rabbinic job, as I see it, is primarily about building and maintaining relationships, so all day long I’m listening to stories and telling other stories and when you’re a rabbi people tend to open themselves to you and invite you into their lives. Sometimes my whole workday is spent on three or four coffee dates and that’s a day really well spent. I consider myself very lucky in that regard, especially when, in my imagination, I compare that kind of workday—a series of fascinating conversations with fascinating people—with some other kinds of work days I might have if I had a different day job. Though I’m not necessarily conscious of it as I write, I’m sure that all of that influences my writing in profound ways—not the details of people’s private lives, of course, which I keep in strict confidence, but the fact that my job requires me to engage deeply with so many different kinds of people, all of them endlessly interesting. It’s just a real privilege to move through the world that way.
Having said that, it’s also the case that my job as a rabbi feels very distinct from my work as a novelist. I wanted to be a writer long before I wanted to be a rabbi and I’ve been working at it for much longer and in many ways it’s much harder for me. My rabbinic work is very important to me and I take it very seriously, but I could have wound up doing something else and, who knows, perhaps I will do something else someday in the future. But it’s hard for me to imagine not being a writer and that’s been true for a long time, since I was a child. It’s the first thing I can really remember wanting, which is kind of weird but true.
BookishlyJewish:This is an embarrassing admission, but when reading about the fringe group the “Rabbits” I did not realize it was supposed to be pronounced like the animal, which makes a lot of sense given what the group stood for. Instead, in my head, it was pronounced Rabbi-it’s. Which is ridiculous and makes no sense at all, and yet it happened. It probably says something about how I was raised, where I live now, and where my head has been this past year. Do you think different readers are having different experiences with NEXT STOP based on their connections – or lack thereof to Judaism?
Benjamin Resnick: Yes, absolutely. And I tried to include some of that in the book itself. Ethan and Ella come from very different Jewish backgrounds and that certainly influences how they interpret what is going on around them. In some ways the argument of the book is that it doesn’t really matter in the end—what they share, as Jews, far outweighs what they don’t share. I believe that’s very often true in the real Jewish world as well.
But I think it’s likely the case that someone who goes to shul twice a year (just for example) will experience the book differently from someone who is shomer shabbat, just as American Jewish readers and Israeli Jewish readers will likely experience it differently. And that’s great! But that’s always how it is no matter who we are—we can’t help but bring pieces of ourselves to our reading. For example, one thing that’s been interesting to me—not surprising, really, but certainly notable—is that readers who are parents tend to experience the book very differently from readers who do not have kids, and, hey, I just realized that’s part of the next question!
BookishlyJewish:The theme of parenting through crisis was very strong for me, and I appreciated your take on the pandemic which is a time many writers and readers are still shying away from. How did you approach that topic?
Benjamin Resnick: I’ve already talked about this (unprompted!) in a few of my answers, but I’ll just add (maybe it comes as no surprise) that parenting is probably the thing that I spend the most time thinking about. It’s just such an intense, all-consuming endeavor—I’m definitely not breaking any new ground with those proclamations!—and it’s also hard to write about without falling into cliche because it’s exactly how everyone says it’s going to be and it’s really the only thing I know of that is like that. It’s just as scary and just as wonderful and just as surprising and just as boring and just as inspiring and just as exhausting and just as revelatory on and on. So I’m glad I was able to write a novel about it and I’m planning to write more novels about it!
In terms of the pandemic? Well, the pandemic definitely informed some of the atmosphere of the book and it is present in the story in a somewhat attenuated way, sort of like a ghost or maybe like a healed wound. But Ethan and Ella were kids during their pandemic, about the same age my children were during Covid, so it’s a hazy memory for them. What do I really remember from first grade? Not much. I didn’t set out to write Covid novel and the pandemic is not a huge, defining moment in the lives of the main characters, just as I don’t think it will be a huge, defining moment in the lives of my own children. But it was such a generationally defining experience for me, for my wife, and for our friends (mostly millennials who have young kids now) that it just would have felt weird (and maybe impossible) not to address it in some way.
BookishlyJewish:Is there anything in particular you are hoping readers take away from the book?
Benjamin Resnick: That being Jewish is a precarious and sometimes dangerous thing to be, but that at the same time it is extraordinary and wonderful and a great privilege. Also that our children can save us.
BookishlyJewish:I always end by asking if you have a favorite Jewish (B.R: I assume you meant book?) to recommend.
Benjamin Resnick: Satan In Gorayby I.B. Singer. It’s absolutely incredible—elemental, intense, highly troubling and very beautiful.
If you meant “favorite Jewish author” I’d probably go with Bernard Malamud.
It is a rare delight to see the author of the book I am currently reading win a National Jewish Book Award for another one of their works which I have reviewed. Last week, while rapidly making my way through The Jake Show by Joshua S. Levy, his latest middle grade novel – Finn and Ezra’s Bar Mitzvah Time Loop – got the nod for MG fiction. I am not surprised. That book was so delightful I went back and found the author’s prior book. Also not a surprise – it too is delightful!
Jake is an epic TV fan. He also has several aliases. As he toggles between living with his orthodox mother and his secular father, he is called Yaakov or Jacob respectively. It’s clear his parents love him, but they each expect Jake to want the same religious practice as they do. Since he doesn’t want to hurt either of them, he lives a double life, practicing orthodoxy with his mother and eating cheeseburgers with his father. It’s like starring in three different TV shows – the striving yeshiva Bochur who wears a black hat and spends his days poring over a Talmud, the up and coming scientist watching television while coding, and the kid who doesn’t want to make friends because the courts keep forcing him to switch schools anyway. Too bad Tehilla and Caleb, two kids from Jake’s new modern orthodox school, didn’t get the memo.
As Jake starts to get close to his two new BFFs, his family life gets worse and worse. Neither of his parents realize how he desperately molds himself to the life of the parent he is with at any given moment. Keeping this a secret is getting harder and harder. How is he supposed to figure out what he wants for himself with all this fighting and pressure? So he concocts the worlds wildest plan to trick his parents into sending him to summer camp with Tehilla and Caleb – a space where he can just be himself for a change.
Levy is particularly strong when it comes to writing madcap hi-jinks. The Shira Club is enough to have anyone rolling in the aisles, and the entire camp episode is one large comedy of errors. Plus, the ridiculousness of color war in a Jewish summer camp seen through the eyes of a first time, thirteen year-old camper is pretty priceless. Yet at the heart of all that hilarity is a core of seriousness. Clearly Jake and his family have some communication issues, but Caleb and Tehilla have a lot going on too – even if Jake is too wrapped up in himself to notice. Particularly brave and moving was the depiction of the fall out for a kid in a modern orthodox school to come out as a gay.
The Jake Show is a quick read, and middle schoolers will fly through it. Even the ones who are reluctant readers, because it is so funny. However, the more contemplative readers will have something to invest in, and maybe even to start a conversation with their parents about. It’s not just a book for children of divorced parents, or gay kids, or poor kids. It’s a book for all kids striving to become compassionate adults – sometimes in spite of inadequate role models. Jake and his friends find their way, but in true camp fashion they do so together, before the parents arrive to pick them up.
How Jewish should I make this story? How much Yiddish can I get away with? How much Hebrew? How many random references to Jewish holidays or summer camp before this book becomes unsaleable to even my fellow Jews? It’s a question all Jewish writers ask themselves. Even when we are comfortable in our choices, we get asked to “make things more relatable” by agents, editors, and publicists. Translate all the ‘foreign’ words, stop being ‘so ethnic.’ Otherwise, we are told, we will terrorize readers who aren’t used to the world not catering directly to them.
I didn’t grow up in either of the communities that Casey, the protagonist of Corie Adjmi’s novel, The Marriage Box, inhabits. That might surprise some people, since it’s a very Jewish book, but there are about a million ways to be Jewish, as Casey herself finds out. She starts off in New Orleans, where her family practices what she thinks of as reformed Judaism, although I’m not entirely sure her personal definitions of reform practice would pass muster with a reform Rabbi. That’s because Casey’s parents are in fact Syrian Jews from Brooklyn, where everyone is more or less considered orthodox even if their definition of orthodox is not what an Ashkenazi Jew would consider orthodox. Confusing? It is, and it leads to some pretty hilarious lines in the book when Casey’s best friend Tracey from New Orleans tries to understand her boyfriend from Brooklyn.
Casey’s prep school, New Orleans world might be familiar to mainstream Americans, but it was violently disorienting to me. I was never more glad to have grown up elsewhere than when I was reading about what Casey and her friends did to and with each other while their parents weren’t looking. None of that “foreign-ness” stopped me from “relating.” I was relating so hard I was physically sick from worry for her.
When things go too far in New Orleans, Casey’s parents decide they need to make a drastic change. To preserve Casey’s reputation, they schlep her back to Brooklyn to restart an orthodox Syrian life. Translation – they want her married by eighteen at the latest, without any dreams of attending college. This was a bit more similar to what I’m familiar with, but also still incredibly foreign. When Casey takes us through various community customs – like eating fish and vegetarian foods in non kosher restaurants, women wearing bikinis, and more Arabic slang than Yiddish – I was obviously not in my world. And yet? It was still relatable.
At the end of the day, it’s these specific details that make Casey’s story so universal. We all struggle when moving from one community to another, having to code switch our manner of dress and speech in order to fit in. We all wonder what life we would like to choose for ourselves if we could. It doesn’t matter if it’s New Orleans or Antarctica. So long as the story is grounded in something that feels authentic and real, readers will recognize the emotions behind it.
I don’t necessarily agree with anyone’s choices in the book. In fact, Casey’s mother seemed just as much a child as her daughter. Miserable, yet pushing her children down the same path that failed her. Casey’s chosen forms of rebellion – both in New Orleans and back in NY as a married woman- were very ill advised and involve firearms. There are some side characters that feel almost thrown away given their lack of depth despite promising starts (I’m looking at you Rochelle, anybody that can be at their friend in crisis’s house in 30 minutes is a fave of mine), but the narrative runs along at a steady clip, and I can vouch for the authenticity behind Casey’s Brooklyn life. The Syrian community is a unique one, and Adjmi doesn’t pull her punches in showing its flaws, along with its beauty. Ultimately, the reader is left hoping Casey finds a way to take the best of both of her worlds without fully returning to either, as they both seemed fairly toxic for her. Indeed, while Casey looks to Tracey as having the life she wants, it was imminently clear to me that Tracey might be just as miserable as Casey is – simply in different ways.
The Marriage Box immerses the reader in two new worlds (or familiar worlds, if you happen to be from these communities), but it’s power is not in watering down those worlds for outside readers. It is in showing them fully, for what they are, without filing down the sharp edges to make them palatable for mass markets. Indeed, such an editorial mandate would have taken the teeth entirely out of the book and rendered it unreadable to anyone. And I personally prefer my books with some bite.
Note: BookishlyJewish was offered a copy of the book, but we already owned it!
Poor Maya, the protagonist of Mosaic, has to contend with heat, dust, bugs, and various other creepy-crawlies when she moves into a rural Israeli farming community. I could definitely relate – not so long ago, I made my own transition to a moshav in Israel’s south and encountered my first “wolf” spider up close and personal. I could also sympathize with Maya’s initial dismay at her radically new surroundings: no malls and no movie theaters, but plenty of dust, bugs, and vegetation.
Maya’s parents are both loving, but work long hours to stabilize their economic situation (this part rings especially true in today’s world), so Maya is left much to her own resources. All the moshav kids have grown up together and there are very definite cliques. She finds herself in the middle of a rivalry between two girls, both of whom she likes, but they are ex-best friends and each is competing for her friendship. These two rivals are Ashkenazi and Ethiopian Jews, respectively, but the conflict between them has nothing to do with their different ethnic backgrounds, just the differences in their personalities and temperaments. This acceptance of one another’s identities is my idea of a perfect world.
The setting of the rural community does feels authentic. This Israel, however, is completely normative – there is no war, looming or otherwise, no demonstrations, no hostages, and no strife. In other words, it’s the world of the average middle school student, and it’s average-ness is refreshing, and in my opinion, much needed. The only battles fought here are preserving integrity to friends, family, and self. This Israel could be anywhere. There are school projects, malls, clothes, bus rides, and pop stars, and even non-Jewish readers can relate to the story.
I was charmed by the novel’s depiction of Maya’s experiences during the Rosh Hashanah holiday. Maya and her family are hosted for the holiday meal by the family of Melessa, an Ethiopian girl, whose great-aunt reminisces about Ethiopian Jewish culture and history and the great hardships her family endured to get to the Promised Land.
Maya is insecure in the way of all middle school girls, but she has a strong sense of self. As she figures out the new and complicated social network, she finds herself showing true leadership qualities as she orchestrates a big school event (think American Idol meets Crash Karaoke with a sprinkling of Dance Moms) that reconciles the strained friendships. There’s enough excitement and humor to keep a middle grade reader hooked. And a life-affirming message about personal responsibility, loyalty, and going the extra mile for friends and community.
The titular “mosaic” is reflected in the mosaic that Melessa and Maya construct for a school project. Melessa shows Maya how each piece, of different size and color, can be placed with care to create a beautiful and harmonious whole. In a sense, the mosaic reflects both the macrocosm of the different communities living in the moshav, and the microcosm of the circle of friends.
In Mosaic, Maya isn’t forced to confront the big issues of our time (unless you consider social media an issue, which I do); she undergoes a personal journey in which she summons inner resources that I wish we all could find. Would love to see a sequel with these same characters
Adina Moryosef is a semi-retired text editor who specializes in academic and other works by non-native speakers. She holds in MA in religious studies from UC Santa Barbara. She and her family made aliyah in 2003.
The traditional publishing timeline is not immediately obvious to people not working in the industry, so I’d like to provide some background before diving in to Benjamin Resnick’s debut dystopian novel Next Stop. Typically speaking, once a writer has their completed fiction manuscript (nonfiction is different) they spend a whole lot of time querying agents to represent them. Those lucky enough to find representation then go through some revisions before submitting to editors who can, and often do, take over a year to respond. Then the acquired book is slated for publication in 1-2 years from the date of acquisition.
Sound like a behemoth? It is.
Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand that the book I am currently holding in my hands is a literal unicorn. Except maybe I should choose a less happy mythical creature, because Next Stop is kind of bleak – in a good way.
People looking to understand how recent world events have affected the fiction publishing landscape often forget that the books coming out at any given time were acquired way before the political and social moments in which they release. There might be some shifts in marketing priorities, but it’s much more pertinent to look at acquisition announcements, or announcements that an author has found representation.
Next Stop, on the other hand, manages to hit the current moment in time like a sledgehammer. In part this is due to the author realizing the tenuous nature of Jewish existence, especially as it relates to the diaspora, way before most of us caught on. However, it is also a testament to publishing being able to move a whole lot quicker than usual when a book in the submission pile actually rises to meet the occasion.
Next Stop follows Ethan and Ella, who fall in love and raise Ella’s young son against a backdrop of an increasingly antisemitic world. A huge black hole deemed the ‘anomaly’ has engulfed the state of Israel and smaller anomalies are popping up around the globe. Since the anomalies began in a geographical area the general public associates with Jews, the world very quickly gives in to their underlying antisemitism and blames Jews around the world. A wave of restrictions that mirrors both Hitler’s Germany and numerous previous government sponsored Jewish persecutions – that everyone who isn’t a Jew often forgets about – sprout up. It’s a story that has played out time and again, and I believe it is not without intention that Resnick chose to use terms from persecutions of the past – the Jewish Ghetto is called “The Pale” for example – to remind us that none of this is new.
Resnick is prescient in not just predicting the future, but also in analyzing the past. When his characters look back on the time of the pandemic, their emotions touch on what is becoming a new reality for many of us. I found myself uniquely moved by the mother who states that during the pandemic, for all its uncertainty, we were “living like kings in Odessa,” but simply didn’t know it. She’s not referring to an abundance of riches. She’s referring to an emotion that many of us who struggled to raise children during that critical time now share. With hindsight comes the knowledge that we and our children did not die, and thus the ability to realize that it was a unique time when we were all actually together. Sure, we were so together we sometimes erected cardboard structures in our apartments to give everyone their own space. Sure we cycled through obsessions like Cosmic Kids Yoga and bread baking. But memory is a malleable thing, and so now our minds focus on the fact that we did these things as a family in a way we are so rarely able to achieve anymore. It’s hard to parse, because many people actually did lose their lives, but there it is. A grain of joy amongst the horror.
This emotional poignancy runs through the entire book. Even the smallest moments, that are unrelated to the overarching plot, are treated with care and an understanding of the fragility of humanity – especially minority populations.
I was not surprised to learn that Resnick is a Rabbi. If you’ve ever met a competent Rabbi, you’ll have discovered that they are uniquely analytic. Jewish spiritual leaders are not here to give us all the answers. They’re here to help point out the questions we ought to be asking ourselves.
Next Stop is possibly the bleakest thing I’m going to read all year – or maybe all century, my readers know I’m kind of a lightweight in terms of tolerating horror and the like. However, it is also uniquely hopeful, and no that is not a contradiction. The ending I was dreading actually caps off the second portion of the book and there is a third section that I was not entirely expecting but was extremely grateful for. The many mysteries about the anomaly are not revealed, nor is it apparent to me that the author even knows the answers to those questions, but instead Resnick pulls hard on the thematic strand of children and the hope they represent. Judaism is a religion uniquely focused on the next generation – our communal next stop so to speak – and this comes through in the ending.
I was shaken, and terrified, and had some trouble sleeping, but I was also deeply moved and deeply seen. I do not regret reading it and I look forward to reading whatever Resnick produces next. Rabbi, you have this readers attention.
