reviews - Jewish Book Council

BOOK PROFILE
JEWISH SOUTH AFRICA IN FICTION
Two novels set 50 years apart explore discomforting nuances of class, power, and
money for Jews in South Africa.
IN A PALE BLUE LIGHT
Lily Poritz Miller
Sumach Press, 2009. 240 pp. $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-8945-4983-7
Lily Poritz Miller is a South African born playwright who co-edited a book of letters
that were written by family and friends in Lithuania and abroad in the first
part of the 20th century. A Thousand Threads, published in 2005, gave her a keen
insight into the turmoil experienced by Lithuanian emigrants, and likely led her to the
subject matter of her first novel, In A Pale Blue Light.
The book tells of a family of Lithuanian immigrants to Cape Town, South Africa in
the early 1900’s, drawing on Miller’s own childhood memories of the city. The story is
about the hardships encountered by Sara, a recent widow, and her five children as
they try to settle in a new country where apartheid is rife and the white people
around them are either anti-Semitic Boers or new Jewish immigrants like themselves.
Unlike themselves, though, many of the Jews around them are happy with segregated
South Africa. Moreover, they’re social climbers and prone to interfere in and gossip
about the misfortunes of others.
It’s potentially great fodder for a story, but unfortunately Miller’s characters are
insufficiently developed and don’t spring to life. Part of the problem is the words
that come out of their mouths. They don’t feel a natural fit with the characters and
their respective ages—primarily the teenager Lieba, whose thoughts are reflected in
a discourse that’s totally out of line with her age.
This makes A Pale Blue Light a difficult read, though for anyone who lived in
Author of nearly 30 novels (perhaps most
famously Interview with the Vampire), Rice
consistently serves up dazzling, elegant prose
and thrilling plots. Dwelling on issues of
faithfulness, altruism, and devotion, the novel
is told predominantly from the first-person
perspective of 28-year-old Toby O’Dare, a
cruel and desperate hitman. Known to his
mysterious boss as “Lucky the Fox,” Toby, a
lapsed Catholic, soon finds himself traveling
through time to 13 th century England.
Malchiah, an angel who has always watched
out for Toby, gives him a chance to turn his
life of crime around. Malchiah reminds Toby
that he had once enjoyed a budding career as
a talented musician, until tragic events dashed
Toby’s hopes for going to a college conservatory,
or for anything resembling a normal life.
Malchiah offers Toby a chance to atone for
46 Jewish Book World Spring 5770/2010
his crimes by moving to an alternate world,
where Meir and Fluria, a Jewish couple, have
been wrongfully accused of ritually killing
their daughter. While the country approaches
mass violence against the Jews, Rice expertly
interweaves a portrait of Jewish life in medieval
England with Toby’s attempts to help. The
novel is particularly brilliant in the many chapters
narrated by Fluria, who tells a timeless tale
of romantic love against the backdrop of societal
unrest. Both Fluria’s life story and Toby’s
actions as he moves metaphysically through
“angel time” have profound reverberations for
Toby’s 21 st century life, which stands in limbo
while his saga unfolds. Throughout, Rice is
wholly unafraid to illustrate life’s suffering,
while also illuminating those moments when
the human spirit triumphs over oppression,
hatred, and despair. PS
South Africa, and particularly those readers of Lithuanian stock, it offers some interesting
insights into the challenges experienced by their recent ancestors. LK
THE SERVANT’S QUARTERS
Lynn Freed
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. 216 pp. $24.00
ISBN: 978-0-15-101288-6
The law of unintended consequences comes to mind when reading The Servant’s
Quarters, for in this novel readers encounter a group of characters who are continually
met with situations in which actions have unanticipated effects.
In the main, the novel is the coming of age story of Cressida, an impetuous, but
clever and inquisitive nine-year-old Jewish girl growing up in the 1950’s in South Africa.
She is eager to learn and experience life, but is riddled with social insecurities caused,
in part, by a self-absorbed, supercilious mother and a comatose father. Despite her
dysfunctional family environment, Cressida’s actions indicate her desire to become a
responsible, reliable, and productive member of society. Yet, she cannot negotiate this
space because, by her own admission, she “forgets to consider the consequences of
anything” and ultimately decides that “considering the consequences of something
before you actually [do] it...doom[s] [one] to failure right from the start.”
The invisible hand of unintended consequences is also evident when readers
learn that both Cressida and her sister, Miranda, are haunted by nightmares about the
Holocaust that “come alive for someone who hadn’t been born until it was over.” In
Miranda’s case, these thoughts translate into debilitating nightmares; in Cressida’s
case, the nightmares fuel her need to know her personal history.
The Servants’ Quarters is a multilayered novel in which Freed not only tells a
love story, but also addresses social class, economic necessities, perceptions of normalcy,
and subservience. Still, the psychological and philosophical undertones are
what make this novel intriguing. MDE
THE BIG KAHN
Neil Kleid and Nicolas Cinquegrani
ComicsLit, 2009. 176 pp. $13.95 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-561-0 (pbk.)
Like ripples on a pond after a stone is
thrown, the consequences of a lie continue
to spread until everyone is affected. In the case
of Rabbi David Kahn, his 40 year masquerade
as a Jew has detrimental effects on his wife, three
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