Shmutz
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
“Hilarious and endearing...Shmutz is a dirty book with a pure heart.” —The New York Times
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“Hilarious and endearing...Shmutz is a dirty book with a pure heart.” —The New York TimesIn this witty, provocative, and “compulsively readable coming-of-age story” (Cosmopolitan), 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 ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn 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 expectations of the family she loves.
“Clever, subversive, juicy, and surprising” (Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies), Shmutz explores what it means to be a fully realized sexual and spiritual being caught between the traditional and modern worlds.
Lese-Probe zu „Shmutz “
1. Daughter of Israel Daughter of Israel The doctor's nails are shiny, glittering around the pen she points at Raizl. "You don't want to get married?" Dr. Podhoretz asks.
Raizl shakes her head. "I want," she corrects. "But I can't. Mami sent me to you because I told her and the matchmaker, no meetings. No b'show." She's told her mother she's scared of sex, which is true. Scared she won't ever find a husband. Also true! Just not everything that is true.
"You can't?" The doctor's forehead wrinkles. "Why not?"
Raizl's thighs clench, her thick tights pressed so close they may as well be stitched together under her long wool skirt, guarding against the feeling that even under all this fabric, a part of her will be exposed. For the sake of finding a husband, though, she will say it.
"Too much watching," Raizl answers, but the doctor doesn't react.
"On the computer," Raizl adds, blushing. The heat of saying it rises from her temples, from the tops of her ears.
"Wait, you mean pornography?"
Raizl nods slightly, a hint of yes. Porn, that's what she watches. Shmutz.
"All right." Dr. Podhoretz is nodding her head, too, as if this isn't unusual. "Let's talk about it. What do you like to watch?"
Like to watch? Why is the doctor asking this? Raizl looks at the ceiling, where perhaps an answer swirls overhead, and mumbles to herself, "Ich veiss nisht." I don't know. She's not sure what happens to her during the nights of porn. Raizl thought Dr. Podhoretz would tell her what's going on, and how to make it stop. So far not.
Instead, the doctor's question reminds Raizl of a video she saw the night before, College Girls Play Games. Three girls lay on a bed on their bellies, wearing shirts but nothing below. Their bare tushes sticking up. Two of them played a silly video game, chatting and laughing, while a man shtupped the one in the middle. Weren't they too old to be playing these games? And didn't they see what was happening between
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them-didn't they notice the shtupping? She wasn't talking, the girl in the middle, but sometimes she reached her hand around, behind her back, and held her tush. Raizl remembers the girl's nice manicure, her bright pink nails.
Raizl squeezes her legs together even tighter, aware that the video memory has stirred sensation down there. She smiles weakly, wondering if Dr. Podhoretz can tell.
But the doctor just tilts her head to one side and asks, "Can you say a bit more? Preferably in English. I'm sorry, my Yiddish is rather limited."
The doctor doesn't sound sorry, but Raizl breathes in, getting ready. It seems an impossible task. To say what she knows.
Never mind that her knowledge is entirely virtual. The only hands that have touched her body are her own. But the videos imprinted in her memory will not be erased or sealed shut. No angel will come to wipe away her knowledge, like the angel who teaches the Talmud to every infant in utero, then pinches the baby's lips shut at birth, leaving the small hollow between nose and lip as a reminder: the child must relearn the Talmud with a new consciousness, with a free will. If only Raizl could come to the marriage bed like this-fully innocent, newborn and unknowing, as eager to learn sexual pleasure as if she had not a shred of digital experience.
It's too late, though, for this kind of purity. Raizl sinks lower in the armchair, and the wine-colored leather creaks without mercy each time she moves. Raizl fears she cannot be reconciled with the sex that awaits her: post-ritual bath, Friday-night sex. Will she take off her special bride's nightgown and be naked? Will she ever persuade her chussen, t
Raizl squeezes her legs together even tighter, aware that the video memory has stirred sensation down there. She smiles weakly, wondering if Dr. Podhoretz can tell.
But the doctor just tilts her head to one side and asks, "Can you say a bit more? Preferably in English. I'm sorry, my Yiddish is rather limited."
The doctor doesn't sound sorry, but Raizl breathes in, getting ready. It seems an impossible task. To say what she knows.
Never mind that her knowledge is entirely virtual. The only hands that have touched her body are her own. But the videos imprinted in her memory will not be erased or sealed shut. No angel will come to wipe away her knowledge, like the angel who teaches the Talmud to every infant in utero, then pinches the baby's lips shut at birth, leaving the small hollow between nose and lip as a reminder: the child must relearn the Talmud with a new consciousness, with a free will. If only Raizl could come to the marriage bed like this-fully innocent, newborn and unknowing, as eager to learn sexual pleasure as if she had not a shred of digital experience.
It's too late, though, for this kind of purity. Raizl sinks lower in the armchair, and the wine-colored leather creaks without mercy each time she moves. Raizl fears she cannot be reconciled with the sex that awaits her: post-ritual bath, Friday-night sex. Will she take off her special bride's nightgown and be naked? Will she ever persuade her chussen, t
... weniger
Autoren-Porträt von Felicia Berliner
Felicia Berliner
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Felicia Berliner
- 2023, 288 Seiten, Maße: 13,4 x 20,8 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Washington Square Press
- ISBN-10: 1982177632
- ISBN-13: 9781982177638
- Erscheinungsdatum: 25.05.2023
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
"Shmutz is a dirty book with a pure heart, though the story was wrapped up before I was ready to leave Raizl's wonderfully horny head. Let her laptop burn forever into the night." -The New York Times
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