A Place for People Like Us by Danila Botha

Reviewed by Jerry Levy

Danila Botha’s novel A Place for People Like Us portrays, often in cringe-worthy detail, just how complicated and weird people can be. Is it any wonder then that some look to religion, to its rules and rituals, to find refuge, solace, and meaning? In Emma Green’s March 31, 2016 article in The Atlantic—“Why Orthodox Judaism Is Appealing to So Many Americans” – she discusses why many Millennials are moving toward the religion’s Orthodoxy, and how these very rituals, i.e. maintaining the Sabbath by refraining from work, phones, driving, shopping, writing, turning off/on any electrical devices, cooking/baking, and generally, turning away from worldly matters, can be spiritually uplifting. A period of rest within a community of like-minded people. (The opposite is true as well—some Orthodox Jews, for various reasons such as being tired of the religion’s dogma, the social conditions within {including the status of women}, and personal curiosity about the secular world, are leaving that branch of Judaism. They refer to themselves by the Hebrew phrase “Off the Derech” {OTD for short}, a derech being a path or trail).

Of course, there is another reason some might gravitate toward Orthodox Judaism. Marriage. Hannah, the 21-year-old protagonist in the novel, would be a testament to that. Born to a Jewish father but a Catholic mother, she would not be considered Jewish in the Orthodox world and her fiancé Mark (o/a Naftali, his Hebrew name) revealed to her that his Orthodox family would never condone the marriage…she would have to convert (interestingly, many rabbis are leery of converting a non-Jew for the sole reason of marriage; a much better reason would be that the potential convert has seriously thought about/researched the religion and understood the process, which can be very long and arduous).

Juxtaposed against the very Orthodox world Hannah is seriously considering entering is her BFF Jillian, a magnetic singer with “dark eyes framed by Bette Davis style baby bangs and cobalt blue eyes shadow,” who frequents the clubs and bars on bohemian Queen Street, hobnobs with models, painters, musicians, and artists of all sorts, who listens to Sonic Youth, Iggy Pop, Janelle Monáe, Solange, SZA and who loves the singer Jill Scott. As Hannah says of her the first time they met at a club where Jillian, outfitted in red leather pants and a cropped tank top, was playing: “…had a big red grin that was both charming and devious, like a cross between Taylor Swift and the Joker.” Goodness! Moreover, Jillian moved through the crowd and kissed her right on the lips. A single kiss that led to many more…and an intimate relationship.

To suggest that Jillian plays it fast and loose would be an understatement. Not only does she stop going to music class to write her own music at home, but she is also into drugs, drives fast while never wearing a seatbelt (to boot, her license has been suspended), and when she gets into a car accident that might have killed both her and Hannah, shrugs it off “like it was an uproarious best friend’s wild misadventure from a movie.” In other words, no big deal.

It would seem that there’s something inherently odd, perhaps even untrustworthy about Jillian. When Hannah talks to a musician by the name of Ewan who knows her, the latter reveals that Jillian is “sexy like crazy women always are. Like, feral….a great performer. Crazy as fuck though.” And lastly, “She’s the sexiest, most charming person ever, until she decides to fuck up your life.” Interesting. Has the author foreshadowed some trait of Jillian’s that will manifest later on in the novel? Certainly Naftali thinks as much. Not only is he jealous of Jillian’s relationship with Hannah, but he is equally suspicious of her motives and the dangers that are involved with being close to her.

To suggest though that Jillian is screwed up but that Hannah walks the straight and narrow, would be misleading. She’s in a very prestigious business program but dabbles in film making, is bi, the daughter of a father who headed up a cult called The Tribe and who fathered many children with many wives, a serial pedophile that ultimately led him being incarcerated. Moreover, when Hannah lived with her stepdad and mom in Hamilton where she had a more stable life than the previous one with her actual father, she had access to Valium, Oxycontin, and Fentanyl through his many pharmacies…all of which she would sell to make extra money. As she herself said: “I wish I could do things lightly or casually, but the way I’m wired, I go all the way or not at all.” Further, “I don’t know why, I can’t just eat a scoop of ice cream, like a normal person, I have to eat a whole carton and then go to the convenience store at 3 a.m. in pajama bottoms to get two more. Until I get them, I can’t even think about anything else. And that’s ice cream. You should have seen me with drugs, I was ridiculous. Fentanyl preoccupied all my thoughts.”

Two proverbial peas in a pod then, Hannah and Jillian. “Weirdos,” as Jillian tells Hannah one day, describing the two. Looking for belonging and direction in an age of infinite scroll, social media, and selfies. Craving connection, intimacy, authenticity, and significance…the foundations of meaningful human existence, far removed from the loneliness, unpredictability, indifference and despair they occasionally feel and are witness to (although not always admitting to such).

Against this backdrop of music, filmmaking, drugs, bars, writing, sex, ambitions that drift in and out of focus (somewhat reminiscent of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City), comes Mark Goldwater (aka Naftali Goldwater), he of the incredibly wealthy Goldwaters, a Jewish Orthodox family who live in a five-story mansion complete with an elevator, indoor pool, tennis court, movie theatre, and maid and housekeeper quarters. The opulence includes a personal make-up artist who applies the family’s make-up Friday afternoons so that it will last all through the Sabbath, from sundown on Fridays to sunset on Saturdays. So the Goldwater women will “feel beautiful on Shabbat,” says Iris, Naftali’s ex-sister in-law.

If Hannah has any beliefs that marrying into the uber-rich and pretentious Goldwater clan will be a smooth ride, she comes to learn otherwise. As an example, she’s invited to meet Avrumi and his wife Shaindy, Naftali’s brother and sister in-law. A once eminent plastic surgeon who performed tummy tucks and facelifts on wealthy Jewish women, he was convicted of a white-collar crime involving the disappearance of millions of dollars. Now reformed from his nefarious ways, he has become especially religious and a stickler for doing things his way. So when Hannah shows up at his house, she is immediately forced to give up her cell phone at the front door. “EMF’s,” he tells her, averting his eyes. “The radiofrequency of 5G phones has been declared a possible carcinogen, which means it could cause cancer.” And when Hannah brings out a small pot of small white and yellow daisies that she puts on the table, Shaindy quickly gets rid of it, indicating her husband is allergic. There’s more. Shaindy sniffs Hannah’s shirt, inquiring about the detergent she uses. When it’s discovered that it’s Tide, she says her husband is allergic to that as well. So she makes Hannah remove her clothing, wash her neck and wrists, and dresses her in a faded black dress she removes from her closet, one that smells “faintly of mould.”

Navigating the Goldwater meshugas (“craziness” in Yiddish) is only one part of the conversion process for Hannah. She also has to immerse herself in a Mikveh (ritual bath), observe the Sabbath, keep kosher by refraining from eating meat and dairy at the same meal, wear only very modest clothes, and obey the law of Niddah (for family purity it requires husband and wife to sleep apart every two weeks each month during the woman’s menstrual cycle). And when she watches Fiddler on the Roof with Naftali, she does so not for enjoyment but rather to understand Jewish ways. To watch like a “cultural anthropologist” as she says. Sufficed to say, it is an ordeal. Especially because at least at the beginning of the process, she is very uncertain. “I still wasn’t sure I wanted to commit myself to him, let alone his religion and culture. But then I thought about the alternative: living indefinitely in Jillian’s apartment, like a freeloader, waiting for her and her family to realize she could do better than me.” As if this all isn’t onerous enough, into the mix saunters not only her bedraggled father, the spiritual head of The Tribe, with his own very unique views on how his daughter should live, but also her best friend Jillian, who may not be the person Hannah thought.

A Place for People Like Us is replete with mental health issues, physical illness, cruelty, family problems, drama, secrets and duplicity. We witness sadness, joy, love, friendship, anxiety, hope and despondency. Life-affirming motherhood. Rarely do novels run the entire gamut of full human emotion and experience but Danila Botha has infused the plot of her excellent work with all that and more. Not always an easy read but a page-turner to be certain, one that continually intrigues and comes highly recommended.

A Place for People Like Us is published by Guernica Editions.