Now or Never Publishing

237 pgs./$19.95

In her debut novel, Gila Green imagines a near future in which Israel has been divided into two separate nation-states by a costly civil war. Eve Vee, the protagonist with an imaginative and wandering mind, attends a secular university in the otherwise Jewish Orthodox dominated state of Shalem, the newly created and nationally unrecognized state. As the story begins she is a young bride-to-be, woozy with love for her fiancé, Manny. But Manny has been cheating on her—not in the traditional, carnal way, but by secretly studying to become a rabbi and discovering a new, strictly religious lifestyle. Eve, who is far from a devout Jew, refuses to change her own lifestyle to meet Manny’s new needs, and the engagement comes to an abrupt end. But when Eve is visited and persuaded by a “pre-soul”, a ghost-like embodiment of her unborn son, she gives her relationship with Manny a second chance.

One of the novel’s primary concerns is the place of religion in the modern world. Manny embraces a kosher diet and honoring the Sabbath, among other Jewish laws, but Eve finds these practices archaic and inconvenient. She struggles to cook a kosher meal and succeeds only with the help of a virtual guide (one of the few times in the novel that advanced technology and religion find harmony). She refuses to pity her husband when he injures himself (on more than one occasion) fumbling in the dark because he will not use electricity on the weekends. Green reveals both conflict and comedy in the discord between the nonstop reality of contemporary living and cautions of devout behavior. Continue reading →