Kaaterskill Falls (Paperback)

Allegra Goodman's remarkable first novel intertwines the stories of three Orthodox Jewish families, each of whom is tugged between religious tradition and the secular world. The story takes place in the upstate New York town of Kaaterskill, summer Mecca for the tightly knit Kirshner sect. Model wife and mother Elizabeth Shulman pictures her community as a sort of Mont-Saint-Michel, an island both joined and separated from the outside world as if by rising and falling tides. Fascinated with what lies on the spiritual mainland, she hides behind the reassuring rhythms of religious observance, though she's inspired with a "desire, as intense as prayer," to create something all her own.

Despite her pious husband's doubts, she does, in the form of a store catering to Kaaterskill's "summer people"--a community Goodman brings memorably to life. The Shulmans' neighbor Andras Melish, a Hungarian who fled World War II and a vanished world of assimilated European Jewry, struggles to understand his young Argentinian wife Nina, whose need for tradition grows with each passing year. The ailing Rav Kirshner must decide which son will carry on in his shoes: dutiful but plodding Isaiah or his brilliant but secular brother Jeremy. Andras and Nina's daughter befriends an Arab girl, while Elizabeth and Isaac's daughter dreams in secret of Israel. Meanwhile, the town's year-round residents observe the Orthodox newcomers with bewilderment and occasional dismay.

As she proved in a warm and funny 1996 collection of stories, The Family Markowitz, Goodman is an unparalleled observer of human nature. Here, she charts with quiet assurance the daily rhythms of Kaaterskill: the meals prepared and eaten, the Holy Days observed, the ebb and flow of married life. Goodman gets all the important details right; her children's dialogue, for instance, is unerring. Above all, however, she brings to the subject of religious life a seriousness and subtlety rarely found in recent fiction. Wise was the word used again and again to describe The Family Markowitz. Applied to Kaaterskill Falls, it is no less apt. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Hasidic cool? Shtetl chic? Whatever you may call it there is a renaissance under way in American Jewish fiction. A spate of writing from new authors in recent years indicates a trend toward redefining the Jewish voice. Allegra Goodman's National Book Award nominated novel Kaaterskill Falls, Nathan Englander's much-hyped collection of short stories For The Relief of Unbearable Urges and Jonathan Safran Foer's acclaimed debut Everything is Illuminated all express the kind of unabashed desire to explore Jewish identity we have not seen in years in US literature.
A uniquely American Jewish fiction developed through the middle of the twentieth century in the work of such authors as Henry Roth, Saul Bellow, Grace Paley, Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, among others. As children of Jewish immigrants to the goldene medinah (country of gold) these authors were primarily interested in how to become fully-fledged Americans in spite of their European Jewish backgrounds. Being Jewish was taken for granted, and in novels like Henry Roth's Call It Sleep, and short-stories like Paley's "The Loudest Voice" and Malamud's "The Jew Bird", they discussed the problem of anti-Semitism and the immigrant rush to shed traces of old-world Jewishness in an effort to gain social acceptance in the new-world cultural melting pot.
With the notable exception of Chaim Potok and a few others, American Jewish writers generally didn't concern themselves with religion. Not so any longer. Perhaps it's a measure of their confidence as Americans that Goodman, Englander and Foer feel free to explore what it means to be authentically Jewish by reaching backward to traditional Jewish settings, themes and characters. Elements more familiar to the Eastern European Yiddish fiction of the late 19th century like the shtetl, traditional folkways, mysticism and religious practice pop up in their stories. And the writers are comfortable enough, or maybe uncomfortable enough, with their Americanness, to be critical of it.
Foer travels physically and metaphorically a great distance to find his shtetl. Goodman and Englander find theirs closer to home. Kaaterskill Falls is a small rural community in upstate New York. Every summer it is invaded by a tightly-knit group of ultra-orthodox Jews, followers of the frail Rabbi Elijah Kirshner. The novel is comprised of three complex narrative threads. First, there is the conflict between the Rav's two children, the bland, stalwart Isaiah who expects to succeed his father as the community's leader, and the more gifted, charismatic Jeremy who is better suited for the job but has strayed. The second and third stories are more personal, following the family dilemmas of Elizabeth Shulman and Andras Melish, respectively.
The Kirshners are at a cross-roads and the future of the community is in doubt. The story is set in 1970s America when the rife individualism of the so-called "Me" generation is beginning to permeate society. Goodman juxtaposes the challenge of religious commitment and adherence to community with the growing temptations of secular influences represented by their Yankee hosts. It's a modified replay of the tensions faced by 19th century European shtetls, with a decidedly American twist.
When Isaiah finally takes over from his father his leadership style is even more strident and rigid than his father's. We are told of Isaiah, "Again and yet again he underlines his point. There is no room for compromise, there is no sustenance outside the community." For Isaiah, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Individual Jewish life is at least untenable, if not completely impossible, outside community. But the demands of the community can be both sustaining and stifling. We see this in the life of Elizabeth Shulman.
Born in England, Elizabeth has read Milton and "spent her pregnancies with Austen and Tolstoy." Her five daughters have both Jewish names and English ones, Chani, Malki, Ruchel, Sorah and Brocha are also Annette, Margot, Rowena, Sabrina and Bernice. The climax of the novel comes when Elizabeth Shulman stands before the new Rav to hear his decision on whether she will be allowed to continue her successful business selling kosher food to the Kirshners. Here Elizabeth's personal dreams and desires come into direct conflict with her faith and communal allegiance. When she is disappointed by the community her faith becomes shaken.
Renée Melish, the teen-age daughter of Andras and Nina, has begun to resist her mother's control by refusing to practice piano (for which she has no natural gift), and experimenting with personal independence. She hangs out with a sassy outspoken non-Jewish girl named Stephanie who is an avowed feminist and has her own dog-walking business. With Stephanie's encouragement Renée takes a job at the local library.
Renée's defiance reflects a divergence in the relationship between her parents. Her father is a non-observant Jew who humours his beautiful South American wife, letting her have her kosher food and synagogue services, but to his skeptical mind they don't mean much. As Andras retreats from his wife, Nina's attempts to assert control over Renée become more vigorous. Of course, this is a recipe for disaster. Nina's neediness for Renée only serves to push her daughter away from family, and likely, community and religion as well.
Rav Elijah is taken from the synagogue in an ambulance on Tisha b'Av, the day commemorating the destruction of The Jerusalem Temple. He muses regretfully about his own leadership style and hermetic emphasis on strict Torah study, declaring about the next generation, "They are born now with severity within them, although they do not know it."
B. Glen Rotchin (Books in Canada)