Carmit Delman

If you liked the movie Eyes Wide Shut, you'll like this book. On a flight from London, Talia meets Philip, an interesting character indeed. Talia is currently in a complicated stage in her life, having left her husband, living with a son who's become disengaged, and seemingly looking for purpose. Philip turns her on to a food passion, and a subculture that is, at times, literally as well as figuratively pornographical.

The book is told first person through Talia. Becomes a teacher like her father was, and connects with a former student she met while subbing for her dad decades earlier. Both were in the same life-situation, but ultimately weren't the solution for each other's needs. She encounters a too-young prostitute. She encounters a religious cult. And this magnificently bizarre establishment called "Prongs" that featured everything from dining on endangered species, "human bacon", and Romanesque orgies. Talia discovers a zest and wonderment of the life she never knew existed.

Alas, this epiphany would be short lived, from ultimate highs come unspeakably terrible lows.… (meer)

This is a very interesting book! Talk about your culture clash and your family secrets! Like many children of mixed cultural backgrounds, Carmit found it a bit difficult to fit into either. But it was more difficult because she was a minority within a minority, a dark-skinned, South Asian who "didn't look Jewish", and an Indian whose family had a different religion and different traditions from the Hindu majority. As a child, her grandmother makes her promise that she will always return to the Bene Israel, and she does.

Her family history, too, set her apart. Her grandmother was betrothed to a man who turned out to be an alcoholic. This put an end to the engagement, but it also made her grandmother practically unmarriageable. Until her sister's husband offered to take her as his second wife. He treated her and her daughter very differently from the way he behaved towards his first wife, being abusive, forcing her to live in poverty while her sister lived in luxury. The family's condescension towards Nana-bai and her descendents continued into the author's generation.

While I wasn't terribly impressed with the author's writing style (I thought she jumped around a lot, among other things), the book is well worth reading for an understanding of the difficulties of growing up in a multi-cultural household, of being "odd girl out", as well as to learn a little bit about this small, perhaps dying, segment of Judaism. I would, in fact, have liked to have learned more about Bene Israel, its history, how its practices differ from mainstream Judaism, but I guess that would be another book!… (meer)