The story revolves around a Jewish family, living in the east end of London. The family consists of its patriarch, a widower and retired Rabbi, the unmarried eldest daughter Bella, the married ‘out’ and therefore ostracised and estranged Esther and only son Norman, the brilliant but drug addicted lawyer.
The dysfunctionality of this family is revealed by its responses to the sectioning of Norman due to drug related delusions and hallucinations and his father’s subsequent heart condition.
Scenes played out in the family home, the family business ( a grocer’s shop) and a mental hospital both in the present and in retrospect show both the strength and weaknesses of the codes that this family lives by and falls short of.
The novel contains some comical moments based on the premise of the Rabbi’s naivety and other worldliness. In particular his inadvertent visit to a prostitute and his use of Yiddish.
The scenes in the hospital have real moments of humour and pathos as well as providing further comment and insight into the nature of both normality and deviance; a theme which runs throughout the book.
A well-paced story with interesting characters; the remembered dead wife and Mother, an Aunt and staff and patients in the hospital all bring colour to the tale.
The book is an interesting study of the stretching, breaking and mending of the threads that link family members and though it has a dramatic climax it doesn’t have any real resolution. This I found rather frustrating.
This review first appeared in The Claudian Review
https://baggingbookers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/elected-member-by-bernice-rubens.html
