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From Publishers Weekly
Returning to familiar terrain in her third novel (after Jephte's Daughter and Sotah), Ragen again examines the lives of ultra-orthodox Jews and the severe consequences that can befall even the most faithful when they take a serious, albeit human misstep. Most of the story takes place in a Brooklyn neighborhood resembling Borough Park, although, as in her previous books, dramatic fanfare occurs in Israel, too. Pious Tamar both adores and is in awe of her warm and brilliant husband, Josh. She is looking forward to an intimate evening after her ritual visit to the mikvah (here Ragen offers a tediously detailed description about Jewish conjugal laws), but that evening she is raped by a black man. She does not tell her husband about the attack, and when she discovers she is pregnant, she does not abort the fetus, because she is not sure whether the rapist or Josh is the father. In trying to make the reader understand why Tamar would choose silence and sustain the pregnancy, Ragen flashes back to Tamar's youth, particularly her relationship with two friends who play pivotal roles throughout her life: Hadassah, the beautiful, rebellious daughter of the neighborhood's primary religious leader, and Jenny, who comes from a secular background but easily adapts to Orthodox observance. The interplay between the girls as they take tentative steps into the secular world of the late 1960s provides some charming scenes, and the final chapters prove moving and dramatic when later consequences of Tamar's deceptive silence shatter her family's life. While Ragen is an able storyteller and handles dialogue deftly, her plots are becoming hackneyed. It's an insular and provincial world that she has chosen to portray, and here she adds little that is new or eye-opening to the reader.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Ragen (Jepthe's Daughter, LJ 12/88) continues to describe life in the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities of the United States and Israel. After being raped, Tamar, the young wife of a brilliant rabbi, chooses to conceal the crime. Soon, she discovers that she is pregnant and wrestles with a moral decision she is ill equipped to make. "What's not nice we don't show" is the modus operandi of Tamar's world, a creed to which she adheres until 20 years later when she must step forward or see innocent lives destroyed. The author paints a picture of a rigid, unyielding people for whom true tolerance and understanding is a luxury only the most saintly can afford, and she juxtaposes the more worldly modern orthodox as a positive alternative. Although Tamar is not a truly lovable heroine, and her transformation is difficult to accept, the author's fluid writing and fascinating descriptions of an exotic community will make this an attractive title for public libraries.
--Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
--Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nice read, if a bit predictable,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Sacrifice of Tamar (Paperback)
This book was loaned to me along with Naomi Ragen's other book, "Sotah." (Which I am currently reading.) The book does give a glimpse into a world seldom ever shared with outsiders, and I found this intriguing. The book certainly "grabs" its readers from the beginning. However, the flashback scenes to the main characters childhoods, even though providing necessary information, was almost a distraction. As well, the flashback takes up a good 1/3 of the book and I felt it might have been better stated at the beginning of the book. When the book is half finished, it becomes rather predictible. The main character is raped by a black man, has sex with her husband the same night, and give birth to a white child. That would seemingly end the story, yet it continues. This leads the reader to pretty much figure what happens next. Even with that, I enjoyed the book as a pleasant diversion. (And enough to go ahead and begin "Sotah" as well) 3 stars is lower than I would give this book, but it doesn't quite reach 4 stars, in my opinion. I would truly give it 3 1/2 stars, if that were possible. I thought the more interesting points in the book were below the surface and how three differing points of view, from three very different women, were demonstrated: from the rebellious Hadassah, to the accepting Tamar, to the reflective Jenny. All three women are strong characters in their own right, and all follow different paths. The relationships between the three and within their own worlds is a fascinating character study.
2.0 out of 5 stars
A desilusioning "Ragen",
By A Customer
This review is from: The Sacrifice of Tamar (Paperback)
I am not a complete fan of Naomi Ragen's style of writing, but from "Sotah" and "The Ghost of Hannah Mendes"I learned about a community foreign to me or a historical period. This book was too predictable, I do not like it when after the first chapter I stop being surprised. I thought the characters to be too limited and charicutaristic, the negative use of the "violent black genetic material" enoying.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read Ragen's other books first,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Sacrifice of Tamar (Paperback)
Though I gave the book four stars, it is clearly not the book "Sotah" and "Jephte's Daughter" were. There was too much of getting the message across rather than true story-telling in "Sacrifice," and Ragen is usually a superb story-teller. I neither thought the book was racist nor denegrating of Orthodox Judaism, and I feel the readers who "saw" those elements in the book were projecting them because they were only reading the surface. The emotions and opinions of Tamar and the other characters are valid as far as what is happening in this particular story. Calling the author a racist is confusing her with her characters. I just wish things hadn't tipped so far into melodrama and polemic. I haven't found Ragen's characters to be such stick figures before; they're usually more three-dimensional.
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