By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

“Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation”

Sarah Yahn’s novel “Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation” (Dzanc Books) has one of the best opening lines I’ve read in years: “‘My mother was raised an Orthodox Jew and then became an Orthodox Freudian, so she pathologized me with a religious fervor,’ Louise told the ordinary-looking young man sitting next to her.” Her explanation of how this affected her cannot be printed in a family-friendly newspaper. However, the conversation intrigues Leon, the name of the young man listening to her. Louise is not on her best behavior that night, although she does have an excuse she doesn’t share with Leon: she came to this Shabbat dinner after running away from the shiva being held for her mother, who died of a degenerative disease. Even though she behaves inappropriately and is nasty to him, Leon finds himself attracted to her.
Readers won’t be surprised to learn that Leon and Louise marry and have a child, even though in some ways Louise never completely becomes an adult. Louise is not a natural mother and contemplates several scenarios of what she might do to their child, which will either horrify or resonate with readers. That means it may not come as a surprise that Lydia develops obsessive-compulsive habits as a child. Leon, who is a psychiatrist, and Louise, who believes in magical thinking, have difficulty agreeing on how to best help her.
However, the novel takes a different turn when Louise discovers that she has the same degenerative disease as her mother. After having watched her mother get slowly weaker over a number of years, Louise decides she wants to spare Lydia from having the same experience: she decides to move to Israel to live with and be cared by relatives who have nursed others with the same disease. But does her decision really help Lydia and Leon? That’s a question readers will debate. However, Lydia faces her own dilemma: whether to take to the test to learn if she also has the same disease. Although she refuses the test, the possibility that she might get sick affects many aspects of her life. 
The author of “Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation” excels in showing the mixed and conflicting emotions of its characters in everything from their everyday actions to the life-and-death decisions they are forced to make. Their reactions to what occurs struck me as real and moving. While reading the novel, I lost track of time because I was so anxious to learn what happened. The emotional impact of the story was so strong it left me feeling gutted. “Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation” is an impressive work of literature.

“Such Good People”

When choosing a novel to review for the paper, I check to make certain it has some Jewish content – either a Jewish character or theme – rather than just a Jewish author. Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding when I asked about “Such Good People” by Amy Blumenfeld (SparkPress). The book has no Jewish characters, although the author is Jewish. So why am I reviewing it here? Because the novel has a Jewish sensibility: underlying the work, and made explicit in one chapter, is the knowledge that its characters are working to fulfil the biblical commandment of “tzedek tzedek tirdof” – “justice, justice you shall pursue.”
April and Rudy have been friends since grade school. Their connection is so important that their parents have also bonded, even though April’s are professionals and Rudy’s father works as a superintendent at an apartment building. However, after high school, April heads to college while Rudy takes some classes and helps his father as a handyman. His life changes after April visits New York with members of her school newspaper and invites Rudy to meet her in a restaurant. It’s there that things go wrong, leaving Rudy arrested and April expelled from her school.
However, the novel opens years later when April is a teacher and happily married to Peter, who is running for office in Chicago. When a reporter discovers her connection to Rudy, who is receiving early release from prison, the scandal threatens Peter’s chance of success. The action in the novel moves forward and backward in time so that readers understand the depth of the relationship between April, Rudy and their families of origin, and finally learn the truth of that fateful night. 
“Such Good People” offers a great deal of suspense because readers will have numerous questions about what actually happened that night. While the novel’s ending might seem a bit too good to be true, it is also extremely satisfying. Just as satisfying was seeing how strong were the bonds between these families: even when something horrible happens, these characters continued to care for and help each other.