Testing Boundaries

Una LaMarche

In Like No Other, Una LaMarche lets readers inside the traditionally private Chabad-Lubavitch community for a rare view of its traditions. Readers enter through the experience of 16-year-old Devorah Blum, whose chance encounter with Jaxon, an African-American young man her age, prompts her to question some of those traditions. Brooklyn's Eastern Parkway marks the boundary between their two communities, but they meet in the hospital that serves them both when the elevator breaks down.

Devorah would never, under normal circumstances, be with a boy her age unchaperoned, let alone a boy outside of her community. They talk about their families, music, and through their alternating first-person narratives, readers watch their mutual attraction develop.

LaMarche reveals the complexity of the mores behind the Chabad-Lubavitch way of life. Devorah jokes that yichud (the rule against two members of the opposite sex alone together) stems from the belief, "Plop two teenagers in a confined space, let them get to talking, and sooner or later the conversation will go to a sinful place..." Yet their attraction bears this out. These rules are rooted in life experience. 

But when does Devorah get to test these boundaries for herself and gain her own life experiences? She's smart and curious and willing to take responsibility for her actions. The author, without didacticism, explores the territory between faith and doubt, fate and free will. Can one's faith strengthen without doubt? Can one respect boundaries without testing them? These are all questions that teens innately raise for themselves, and LaMarche's romance about two 16-year-olds curious about and attracted to each other, gives teens an apparatus for examining these questions for themselves.

Lifting the Veil

As an Upper West Sider in Manhattan, I live among Orthodox Jewish families. Parents drop off their children at the school on my block. I see the men in hats and women with their heads covered and wearing long skirts as they walk to services on Friday nights and stroll along the Hudson River with their children during the High Holy Days. Hush, by Eishes Chayil, took me inside this insular world and offered me a deeper understanding of its culture and customs. The novel’s narrator, Gittel Klein, lives just two blocks outside of the heart of the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn’s Borough Park, but that’s enough to give her a rare arm’s-length perspective of her community.

The goyishe (non-Jewish) family that rents an apartment from Gittel’s father may be off-limits, but Gittel and her best friend, Devory, form a friendship with Kathy, Gittel’s upstairs neighbor, and realize that she is not the devil she’s painted to be. This raises other questions for Gittel. That exposure to outside values factors into her contemplation of whether or not to confide what she comes to realize about Devory’s suicide at age 10. While Gittel spends the night at Devory’s house, she witnesses something she doesn’t quite understand but that fills Gittel with fear. Devory’s 15-year-old brother, who is home from yeshiva, comes to Devory’s room in the dark and goes under his sister’s blanket: “I saw the blanket, how it moved back and forth and back and forth so fast I thought they were playing tug-of-war.” Those are the only details the author gives, but they are the only details she needs to give. Gittel never discusses this with Devory, but she knows something is terribly wrong. Only as she prepares for her marriage does Gittel realize what happened to Devory, and she must either betray her community by telling the truth, or betray herself.

There has been some debate about whether Hush would have been better served if it had been published as an adult book rather than as a book for teens. But I believe it is solidly young adult. The author clearly traces Gittel’s coming of age, and the way that the gradual realization of what happened to Devory shapes the person Gittel becomes. The chapters in which the 12-year-old Gittel narrates perfectly capture that young, trusting mind attempting to make sense of her world and testing her theories. It’s a book filled with warmth, humor and respect for family and tradition. So when Gittel begins to question the dark side of tradition and absolute loyalty, we feel the devastating consequences as acutely as Gittel does.

The Immigrant Story

The Lleshi family’s story in Katherine Paterson’s novel The Day of the Pelican seems especially appropriate at this Thanksgiving time, when so many of us think about our own families coming to this country as immigrants. Many families, like the Lleshis, could not speak the language or understand the subtleties of the culture when they first arrived here. What is it like for Baba, the head of his household, to have to rely on his children to translate for him, not only the language but also a gesture or custom? What is it like to watch your children set aside many of the things you’ve taught them in favor of new friends, new fads, new values?

As much as he wants his children to excel in their new surroundings, Baba also wants them to honor their family’s traditions, and these two desires are not always an easy fit. Assimilation often trumps tradition. In Pelican, Katherine Paterson explores the complexities of these competing influences. After the events of 9/11, Meli and Mehmet’s teammates lash out at them—verbally in Meli’s case, and physically in Mehmet’s case—because they are Muslim. Neither of them wishes to return to school, but Baba tells them they must. The teens’ coaches pay a call at the Lleshi home, apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Lleshi and tell them that they will remove the offending students from the team. But Baba tells the coaches that such a step would seed more hatred toward Meli and Mehmet. “My children are strong,” he says. “They have endured many hard things in their short lives. They can also endure this.” In her interview (below), Katherine Paterson discusses the importance of the scene between Baba and the coaches, and the respect these coaches gain for Mr. Lleshi.

It is the immigrant story. A family arrives in America to gain a better life for their children. Often the children adapt more readily to the language and ways of their new life. The challenge to the older generation is to keep the family together in the face of these other forces of influence, and the challenge to the new generation is to remember what is important even as they acquire knowledge and skills that will serve them well in their new homeland. The Lleshi family’s story reminds us of the great sacrifice all immigrant families make when they courageously arrive at our borders and on our shores.