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Review "Relentless Moon"

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was a little nervous starting The Relentless Moon, as I didn’t like the second one in the Lady Astronauts Series as much as the first. But I was hooked in the first twenty pages: first person POV from 50+ year old governor’s wife who is also an astronaut with a second home on the moon, explosions during a black-tie reception, then a rocket ship on a routine trip to the moon blow up shortly after takeoff. Suddenly I’m not only reading an alternate history science fiction story, but one that quickly becomes a mystery novel after sabotage enters the plot mix along with racism and misogyny. Plus there’s a feminist heroine sleuth whose feet hurt wearing high-heel shoes, who suffers from an eating disorder and loves her husband very much. And did I mention there’s cats?

There’s a lot going on here, and I regularly read so fast to find out what would happen next that I had to go back and read parts again to be sure I didn’t miss anything important—which I often had. As an author, I was incredibly impressed at how tight the plot was, especially since it was a mix of several genres that don’t usually work together. I appreciated how little things turned out to be important later, and how the heroine occasionally turned out to be an unreliable narrator—that is, she held back important information about herself from the readers. My main complaint was the regular appearance of alcoholic drinks, like martinis were part of a healthy diet. No spoiler here, except to say that the epilogue is awesome. And did I mention the cats?

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Does Mishpatim really say to kill sorceresses?

This week’s Parasha [Torah Portion] is Mishpatim, Exodus 21:1-24:18. As it happens, I wrote a scene in Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda’s Daughter, where the great Talmudic Sage Rava explains why Jewish sorcery is permitted.

--A student questioned how Jewish women could write amulets. “But in Mishpatim, the Torah says that a mekashaifa, a sorceress, is not to live.”
--I smiled. “Go ahead, Rava. I think we’d all be interested in your exegesis.”
--“Good question. It is one many people ask when they learn that respectable Jews, even rabbis, perform enchantments,” he began. “Once, when a student confronted Abaye about his mother Em being a charasheta, Abaye replied that the laws of sorcery are like those of violating Shabbat. Some acts are punished by death, some are forbidden but exempt from punishment, and some are permitted.”
--I leaned forward eagerly to hear more as Rava continued. “Just as we may violate Shabbat to save a life, so is charasha permitted for healing and protection from demons or the Evil Eye. And not just to heal an illness, but to prevent someone from falling ill.”
--I interjected, “Which includes us all, since everyone is either ill or concerned about becoming ill.”
--“And every Erev Shabbat my teacher Rav Oshaiya creates a third-sized calf to eat in honor of the holy day.” Rava looked his student in the eye. “Torah only forbids foreign sorcery, such as the ways of the Egyptians and Amorites. Jews are permitted incantations that call upon our angels and use Elohim’s secret names.”
--I quoted a relevant Baraita. “As it is written: You shall not learn to act according to the abominations of these nations. This means you may learn sorcery so you understand it and can teach it, and to counter it if necessary.”
--Rava agreed. “It is particularly important to know charasha so we may protect against unscrupulous practitioners.”
--Another student asked, “Who created all those spells to begin with?”
--Rava addressed the student as if he were a child. “The angels, of course, that’s how we know to call on them.”
--When they looked at him in amazement, Rava continued, “You know that passage near the beginning of Bereshit, when the divine beings saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and took wives from them?”
--“Yes,” the student replied slowly. “Their sons were the heroes of old. But how does this related to sorcery?”
--Rava let me answer. “When they came down from Heaven, they taught their wives incantations to adjure the angels for healing and protection,” I explained. “When they had female offspring, their mothers taught them the spells. And they taught their daughters, who taught their daughters, and so forth down to today.”

Rogue Pythia's list of Jewish Fantasy novels

Rogue Pythia, aka "Fandom Grandma," has been squeeing about sci-fi, fantasy, genre related fandom things since the 90's. Recently I was google alerted to her list of Jewish fantasy novels, which contained two novels [in bold] I’ve recently reviewed on Goodreads. Also—at the very bottom—I found my Rav Hisda’s Daughter series.

• The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid (adult, based on Hungarian Jewish history)
• Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (adult, based on Russian Jewish history)
• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (adult, urban fantasy)
• The Wise and the Wicked by Rebecca Podos (YA, urban fantasy)
• Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes (adult, anthology)
• A good amount of Alice Hoffman’s books
• Same for Jane Yolen’s short stories and Briar Rose
• The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (adult, historical)
• People of the Book edited by Rachel Swirsky and Sean Wallace (anthology)
• The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner (adult, based on Romanian Jewish history)
• Anything by Shira Glassman
• The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein (YA, historical pre-WWII Hungary)
• The Dyke and the Dybbuk by Ellen Galford (Adult, lesbian, urban fantasy)
• The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff (historical, pre-World War I Eastern Europe)
• The Autobiography of God by Julius Lester (adult, modern fantasy)
• The Way Back by Gavriel Savit (YA, historical Eastern Europe)
• Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack (middle grade, historical tenth century Eastern Europe)
• The Tel Aviv Dossier by Lavie Tidhar (adult, contemporary horror/weird fiction)
• the Rav Hisda’s Daughter series by Maggie Anton (adult, historical Babylonia)

Goodreads 4-star review of “A Bintel Brief” edited by Isaac Metzer

A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward by Isaac Metzker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward consists of six decades of letters, many heart-breaking in their sadness, collected from the Lower East Side (of New York City) to “Jewish Daily Forward.” They seek advice from the “worthy editors” on how to survive and succeed in the Golden Medina. The first thirty-six pages have letters dating from 1906-1907. Next come 10 pages of black and white photos, followed by thirty-one pages of letters from 1908-1909. All were written in Yiddish, translated in the book.

For the most part, the letters’ authors are “greenhorns”—the new Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Can they find enough work to support their families? Will they become Socialists or Free-Thinkers? How do they find the right girl/boy to marry? What will become of women whose husbands are too ill to work, or desert them entirely? How can they work such long hours and also take care of their children? Somehow they persevere as the book moves more rapidly through the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, with some years without any letters, until the final letter from 1969. Many are from parents proud of the children who have become college graduates, professionals and businessmen, but there is always something to kvetch about—often a son or daughter-in-law. We start hearing from the grown children of immigrants, some who are ashamed of the parents’ old-fashioned ways, some who join the armed forces, some who want to emigrate to Israel. My only complaint, which is why I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5, is that I would like to have seen more letters from those later years, and not just because my new novel, The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith and The Talmud is set in 1950s Brooklyn.

This is a fascinating, and poignant, window into the lives of many of our Jewish ancestors. However nostalgic and distressing I found their problems, below the surface I was always aware that these people were survivors. It was the relatives they left behind in places like Lithuania, Belarus and Poland that we should feel sorry for.
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Weapons of Math Instruction

In honor of International Creativity Month in January, I'm sharing this clever [and creative] essay titled Weapons of Math Instruction:

At New York’s Kennedy airport today, a person later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a drafting triangle, a compass, and a calculator. During a press conference the Attorney General said he believed the man was a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement and the FBI intends to charge him with transporting weapons of math instruction.

“Al-Gebra is a fearsum, transverse cult,” the Attorney General said. “As a group they seek means of average solutions by extremes, and sometimes randomly go off on tangents in search of absolute values. A member of al-Gebra may use acute alias such as ‘x’ or ‘y’ and refer to himself as an unknown identity, but we have determined that he is likely to belong to a common denominator — the axis of medieval that coordinates in every country.” The Attorney General continued, “Al-Gebra functions as a bunch of standard deviations that have been tribal since the time of Noah’s arc,” a remark that struck a chord with the media. “They are inordinate in terrorism, of that I’m abscissaly sure.

My 5-star review of "The Source" by James Michener

I first read “The Source” many years ago, probably less than ten years after it was published in 1965. It was a great way to learn some history about the State of Israel, as well as an introduction to the problems that, by disallowing civil marriage, the Rabbinate created for couples wanting to marry who didn't meet the exacting standard of Orthodox Halacha. But I digress.

Reading the novel again from a more feminist viewpoint, I couldn't help noting that every chapter except one [the Voice of Gomer] was written from a man's POV. True, there were many female secondary characters, but most were interchangeable wives, daughters or sex objects than real people. I tried not to be critical of James A. Michener's portrayal of Arabs as greedy and craven; a common stereotype back then. Also his apparent admiration for the Hasidic rabbis, who are despised by most Israelis today. By the way, I was curious about Michener's religion, and was intrigued to learn that he was a foundling, brought up as a Quaker.

But I still give it 5 stars. The amount of research involved is formidable, and I only found the modern and most recent chapters problematic. I liked how the continual thread is the family/descendants of Ur, and that we get one scene with a Jewish man whose ancestors have always lived in the same location, who never left Israel. Most important, I read the entire novel in 3 days. It was very difficult to put down.

Best Jewish Historical Fiction

If you're on Goodreads and a fan of Jewish historical fiction, check out this list and vote for your favorites. I'm pleased to see all five of my novels on the list, with "Rashi's Daughters: Joheved" at #5, "Rashi's Daughters: Miriam" at #11 and "Rashi's Daughters: Rachel' at #13. Many, including the Historical Novel Society, would say that "The Chosen" shouldn't count as historical fiction since it was written only 25 years after the events in the novel. Same for "Exodus," since their definition is fiction written 50 years afterwards. But others, including the creators of this list, don't care when the novel was written as long as it describes events that occurred over 50 years ago.

My 5-star review of "The Sisters of the Winter Wood" by Rena Rossner

The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was enchanted with The Sisters of the Winter Wood; I couldn't stop reading it. Stories that my bubbe told me when I was little; "bubbe maises" she called them, but now I realize they were Yiddish fairy tales, like this novel. It begins with a fascinating scene of a Jewish family with two daughters living in Dubossary, a small Ukrainian village around the turn of the 19th/20th century. But there's a magical twist: the father can turn into a bear and the mother into a swan. The chapters alternate between the two sisters' POV; Liba, the almost 18 yo elder, writes in prose and Laya, 15 yo, in poetry.

The parents must leave the girls alone to travel to the shetl where the father's father is on his deathbed. Almost immediately Liba begins a relationship with Jewish Dovid, the butcher's son, and Laya with non-Jewish Fedir, the handsome mysterious fruit seller. Rena Rossner does a wonderful job of describing the girls' confused and escalating feelings towards the men; attraction mixed with guilt at having disobeyed their father's rules to avoid being alone with men. Then some strange things begin to happen in town. Villagers disappear and are later found dead, drained of blood. Jews are accused, but the reader knows it's the work of the strange fruit sellers. Swans and bears are seen in the forest, one of the fruit sellers turns into a cat, and slowly family secrets are revealed. Secrets that readers are privy to before the sisters know themselves.

The ending, which I won't give away, is both climatic and satisfying, as the villagers fight off a pogrom and the evil fruit sellers' true identity is revealed. And of course, like in all fairy tales, the sisters find true love. One small complaint: the back matter includes a glossary divided into Hebrew, Yiddish and Ukrainian words, plus a section of Yiddish sayings. Which meant I had to check four different lists to find a word I didn't know. In my upcoming book The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith and The Talmud [pub date May 2022], I also needed a glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew words, but I interspersed them in one alphabetical list. I was pleased to see that for the most part, our transliterations matched.

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Goodreads 4.5-star review of “Street dreams” by Faye Kellerman

Street Dreams by Faye Kellerman
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

I don't read many police procedural novels these days, but I'm glad I read this one. Like our heroine Cindy rescuing a newborn baby from inside a dumpster, I rescued Street Dreams from a pile of hardcover books discarded outside my local library. I enjoyed other mysteries by Faye Kellerman in her early career, so I picked it up. I give it 4.5 stars; it would have rated 5 stars except for the completely unnecessary, and boring, digression into Rina's grandmother's murder in Germany decades earlier.

There were so many parts I liked otherwise: the Jewish content, Cindy's need to put the stalker who terrorized her [in the previous novel] behind her, her dual relationships [daughter and protege] with her police detective father, her romance with Ethiopian-Israeli Koby, and how the three of them worked to solve the various intertwined mysteries. I particularly enjoyed how the author set so many scenes in and around my native Los Angeles, where I still live. I recognized many of her locations and it really brought the story to life. I also appreciated how Kellerman demonstrated the underlying racism and sexual harassment that was both prevalent and ignored 20 years ago when this book was published. I confess that I also enjoyed the pun in the novel’s title.

As for the convoluted mysteries, I admit that I had to read some of the chapters more than once to understand how all the pieces fit together. This is not a murder mystery where it's obvious who done it, but I found the ending highly satisfying. I am disappointed, however, that there are only two novels that feature Cindy Decker and apparently, I've read the better one.

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Lack of women cartoonists

Last month the Los Angeles Times cancelled the long-running comic strip, 9 Chickweed Lane, for using a racial slur. Written and drawn by Brooke McEldowney for over 25 years, “9 Chickweed Lane” follows the women of three generations of the Burber family: Edna, Juliette, and Edda. In cancelling the strip, the Times asked readers to recommend replacements. Here’s the letter I wrote to them:

“Right now only one out of 25+ strips on your comics page is written by a woman cartoonist. Surely you can find some others, maybe even do a combination of cartoons by women from the past. We get the New Yorker, so Liza Donnelly comes to mind. I suggest that you check out her article about the lack of women cartoonists: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists, Then and Now. It’s not only informative, bus has some great cartoons.

An Observant Wife by Naomi Ragen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been a fan of Naomi Ragen for over twenty-five years, and this is definitely one of my favorite books of hers. The characters are well-drawn and though Ragen breaks the novelist rules of limiting scenes to one POV [point-of-view], I had no trouble following whose head we were in. I found some of the soul-searching inner dialogues too long. But as a woman in her 8th decade, I loved the romance between the elderly Rav Alter [alter means old in Yiddish] and widowed Bubbe Esther. Why should the young have all the fun?

As some of you may know, I have a new book coming out in the Spring, The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith and The Talmud. As I read Ragen's novel, I was pleasantly astonished to notice the similarity between her subplots and mine. One, the prevalence of child sexual abuse by Haredi clergy and how to deal with it when the community both won't admit that such behavior exists and, once they can't deny it, refuses to file complaints with the secular authorities; both in the 1950s [my novel] and 2010s [hers]. In hers, the primary victim is our hero's daughter. In mine, my subplot's protagonist is the Hasidic child psychologist who treats the abused children and because of this, faces his community's hostility. Two, how to handle disillusionment with your religion's norms while retaining your faith.

But back to An Observant Wife. The most important comparison with my novel and Ragen's, is that we both leave our readers with a happy ending, something I appreciate more and more these days. View all my reviews

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. If there’s anything I need more of in 2022, it’s serenity, equanimity, and quietude. By accident, while looking on the Huntington’s website to learn what days and hours they’ll be open next week, I stumbled upon this amazing virtual show by the American Viewing Stone Resource Center. In traditional Japanese culture, Seiseki are small naturally occurring uniquely shaped rocks which are appreciated for their aesthetic or decorative value. Suiseki are usually presented in two different ways:
• The stone is provided with a wooden base (daiza).
• The stone is placed in a waterproof tray or bowl of ceramic (suiban) or bronze (doban).
These stones are not just any stones which can be found in nature; they must be expressive stones and have a special shape, color and texture to be categorized as suiseki. There is a distinction between landscape and object stones. The former reflect landscapes such as mountains, lakes or rivers, while other stones have object shapes that resemble animals or sculptures. The stones are of natural origin and are found in rivers, oceans and karst areas. Popular types of suiseki suggest a mountain, a waterfall, an island, a thatched hut or an animal.

There are over 100 different stones in the three Huntington virtual shows. Watch them at whatever speed you prefer, stopping to admire one or another for seconds, minutes or any amount of time you want. Maybe listen to some soothing music as you take in one stone after another. Take screen shots of your favorites. Here are the links: By the Sea and California Aiseki

You can also see the National Bonsai Foundation’s viewing stone collection. Each stone is displayed to suggest an aspect of the natural landscape, such as a distant mountain or a waterfall. Thus, when these small-scale forms are viewed together in a complementary arrangement, the whole of nature can be imagined. The collection began with six Japanese viewing stones given by Japan on the occasion of the American Bicentennial in 1976. Today there are 105 stones from different countries: Japan, China, Indonesia, South Africa, Zaire, Namibia, Italy, Canada, and the United States.