The Marriage Box
by: Corie Adjmi
May 2, 2023, She Writes Press
288 pages
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!