Books & Poetry

Following in the steps of ‘White Teeth’ and ‘Brick Lane’, ‘Disobedience’ is the latest London novel to lift the lid on the city’s ethnic and religious communities. This time, the spotlight is on Hendon’s Orthodox Jews. In the past, it’s the more secular and politicised East End Jewish community that’s had all the attention, in novels such as Emmanuel Litvinoff’s ‘Journey Through a Small Planet’.

By contrast, north London’s  Orthodox Jews have remained elusive, with most people’s knowledge of them limited to sightings of the men in their bizarre nineteenth-century uniforms.  Alderman has done a commendable job of shedding light on the group through the eyes of sassy Ronit, an ex-fraumer living in self-imposed exile in New York. Following the death of her father, a Rav (rabbi), Ronit returns to Hendon and is forced to confront some home truths. Alderman vividly evokes the claustrophobic religious world, with its kosher shops, mikvahs (ritual baths) and religious schools – as well as the suffocating expectations that Ronit once railed against. But it’s Ronit who lets the book down. She’s half chick-lit heroine, half Amis femme fatale, and as such never quite believable or sympathetic enough. By the end, it all feels a bit like ticking boxes.

The conclusion, too, is a little too pat: Ronit learns a degree of humility; the community learns that there are different ways of living. But the reality is that religious fundamentalism doesn’t allow you to have your cake and eat it – especially if it’s not kosher.