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Staff Reviews
SHMUTZ in Yiddish refers to anything dirty, filthy and unclean. In Felicia Berliner's extraordinary debut novel SHMUTZ refers to the pornography discovered by ultra-Orthodox Raizl, on the laptop given by her employer. Of marriageable age, Raizl's search is one of discovery and wonder. This magical novel is about venturing into the unknown, in search of pleasure. Funny, insightful and lovey, it is a unique insight into what is a very closed world.
— Cheryl
Description
Berliner finds the bridge between ecstatic and carnal. --Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling authorClever, subversive, juicy, and surprising....A stunner --Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church LadiesIn this witty, provocative, and unputdownable debut novel a young Hasidic woman on a quest to get married fears she will never find a groom because of her secret addiction to porn.Like the other women in her Brooklyn Hasidic community, Raizl expects to find a husband through an arranged marriage. Unlike the other women, Raizl has a secret. With a hidden computer to help her complete her college degree, she falls down the slippery slope of online pornography. As Raizl dives deeper into the world of porn at night, her daytime life begins to unravel. Between combative visits with her shrink to complicated arranged dates, Raizl must balance her growing understanding of her sexuality with the more conventional expectations of the family she loves. A singular, stirring, and compulsively readable debut novel, Shmutz explores what it means to be a fully realized sexual and spiritual being caught between the traditional and modern worlds.
