When your basement is flooding and you have to Shop-Vac the rising waters but you just have thirty pages left to read and you realize that finding out how this book ends is far more imperative than saving possessions in boxes, you know you have a five-star book on your hands.
This memoir embodied exactly what I love most about the genre: discovering someone's culture or way of life that's a million miles away from my own experience, especially with regards to family dynamics. And, like a flood itself, Leah's account was messy, it built, it surged, it raged, retreated, and it cleansed.
Leah Vincent's parents abruptly disowned her when they discovered letters written between her and a friend's brother during a period in her life when she was away living with relatives. To a person not born into an ultra-Orthodox Yeshivish family such as Leah's, the context of these letters can be seen for what they appeared to be: simple curiosity between friends. The fact that such secrecy (letters left under door mats versus platonic friendly conversations) was even imperative in the first place speaks volumes about just how restrictive the rules were. Outside of this confining religion, her teenage crush on this boy can be taken at face value, but to her parents, a strictly observant mother and a Rabbi father, she was guilty of nothing less than ultimate sin. But, no, that's not quite enough: not only was it a sin in their eyes, but an outright disregard for their teachings and one that would bring a cloak of embarrassment, shame and even devaluation of her younger siblings' future potential for good marriage matches, that we learn, along with child-bearing and rearing, are the pinnacle of life for a Yeshivish woman.
Upon being outcast from her family, as she moved through late adolescence into early adulthood, every new and foreign experience forced Leah to question and confront monumental matters: her religious upbringing, her body, her sexuality, her family, her self-assuredness and, not least, her ambition. Forced into independence without a compass nor a safe place to land, as she navigated different schools, cities, various relationships and independent living there were so many anomalies and varying influences in her life, I was left wondering (and hoping) through all of the dramatic ups and downs if she would ultimately find what would truly make her life worth living.
Her young life was already such a heart wrenching series of paradoxes: should she turn towards or away from her religion? Would she remain shy and secretive or find her voice? Would she finally cross paths with the right people who would give her the basic human rights she palpably chased after: feeling valued, respected and loved?
As a reader, her moments of pain pierced my heart, her moments of shame left me wanting to reach through the pages to offer her comfort, and her triumphs and fighting spirit had me cheering her on. I wanted nothing less than a happy outcome for her. If anyone deserved one, Leah Vincent certainly did and if anyone could make it happen, it was no one but her on her terms alone.
0 comments:
Post a Comment