Exodus

March 24, 2014
Feldman's (Unorthodox) second memoir examines her life after leaving the Hasidic community in which she was raised. After settling in New England with her six-year-old son, Isaac, she begins a search for personal history and identity. This personal journey is also a physical one as Feldman sets off on many excursions. She takes Isaac to Cordoba, Spain, where she is horrified to learn that are only 10 Jews left in the city. Feldman travels to Hungary where her grandmother, a holocaust survivor, was born, in the search for "something along the lines of closure." Her adventures are presented out of chronological orderâa choice that makes the story confusingâand include France, Austria, Germany, and a cross-country drive. Her most intriguing explorations are often the domestic ones. While visiting a Sarah Lawrence classmate in the Southwest, for example, Feldman meets her first "authentic Republican" and takes her first bite of shrimp in front of an eager audience. In New Orleans she falls in love with Conor, a "redneck with a shotgun collection." Her most surprising love affair is with Markus, whom she first encounters online and meets in-person in Germany. Markus, descended from Nazis, admits that "is grandmother had boasted about kissing Hitler's hand." Feldman richly describes her triumph following her "escape" from a restrictive way of life. Agent: Patricia van der Leun, The Patricia van der Leun Literary Agency.

March 1, 2014
One woman's search to understand herself and her Jewish heritage. Raised under the strict rules of a Satmar Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, Feldman (Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, 2012) had no clue how tightknit that community was when she decided to leave her marriage and a man she didn't love with her young son and find a new life. "Leaving, to me felt like climbing a tremendous hill," writes the author, "one of those steep inclines that becomes almost treacherous in that the more momentum you build while racing down it, the more difficult it becomes to stop safely." She found herself an outcast from the Jewish system she'd been raised in and an outsider to the rest of the world, which often could not see beyond her apparent Jewish features. Unable to fathom life in hectic Brooklyn, Feldman pulled up stakes and moved to the countryside. Rich in details of Jewish life and the lives of her grandparents in the World War II era, the author sensitively portrays the inner struggles of accepting the pervasive feeling of survivor guilt and her own desires to understand the woman she was becoming. Feldman juxtaposes painfully emotional moments in concentration camps and in European towns where evidence of Jewish settlers was practically erased with humorous, almost macabre playacting scenarios with a German lover, scenarios that only added to Feldman's confusion over her own identity. The overall effect is captivating, entertaining and informative, providing readers with an honest assessment of the strength of one's convictions and the effect a strict religious background can have on a person. An enthralling account of how one Orthodox Jewish woman turned her back on her religion and found genuineness and validity in her new life.

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March 15, 2014
In this follow-up to her New York Timesbest-selling memoir Unorthodox (2012), Feldman positions herself as the quintessential wandering Jew. Exodus tells the story of Feldman's journey of self-discovery, which takes her from the American South to the Jewish ghettos of Old World Europe. Along the way, Feldman both meets and is alienated by Jews and Gentiles alike, falls in and out of love with a redneck (complete with motorcycle and shotgun collections), travels across continental Europe, and visits the tiny Hungarian village where her ancestors were born, always trying to find her own sense of identity separate from the strict Hasidic sect in which she was raised. Feldman's journey is undeniably and explicitly Jewish, but the aching need to find both a welcoming community and a sense of individuality is one that readers from all walks of life will be able to identify with. Those left unsatisfied with the abrupt ending to Unorthodox will enjoy the more hopeful conclusion to Feldman's second book as well as her more mature and increasingly eloquent writing style.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2013

As she recounted in her eye-opening memoir, Unorthodox, a New York Times best seller, Feldman was raised in a strict Satmar Hasidic community in Brooklyn but eventually abandoned her roots and a loveless marriage, attending Sarah Lawrence College and becoming a writer. Here she continues her story, explaining what it has been like to build a life as a single mother, away from everything she knew, and rethinking her Jewish identity in a way that works for her. Another celebration of independence; with a nine-city tour.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.