19 year-old Chani lives in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community of North West London. She has never had physical contact with a man, but is bound to marry a stranger. Buried secrets, fear and sexual desire bubble to the surface in a story of liberation and choice; not to mention what happens on the wedding night...
19 year-old Chani lives in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community of North West London. She has never had physical contact with a man, but is bound to marry a stranger. The rabbi's wife teaches her what it means to be a Jewish wife, but Rivka has her own questions to answer. Soon buried secrets, fear and sexual desire bubble to the surface in a story of liberation and choice; not to mention what happens on the wedding night...
'Longlisted for [2013's] Man Booker Prize, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, by former teacher Eve Harris, is one of those books you cannot put down.'
* The Sunday Express *'Harris writes of this closed world with knowledge and understanding, and highly observant, slightly acidic humour. Deservedly longlisted for the Booker'
* The Times *'Harris's debut novel, also longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize, is confidently done, a romantic comedy at ease with its own lightness. Its setting, northwest London's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, is small and devoutly separate, and reading about such enclosure is pleasantly consuming...Harris is humorous and clement throughout with her characters.'
* The Sunday Times *'Harris's eye for suburban social mores is wickedly acute, as is her evident relish in describing both the sensual life and its absence. While perhaps too breezily written to take it further in the Booker stakes, her book has the potential to be that rare thing - a crowd-pleaser about Orthodox Judaism.'
* The Guardian *'Her fiction debut is witty and compassionate'
* The Independent on Sunday *'Harris evokes the community's insular nature, she also suggests the sense of comfort and belonging that it confers, offering a sympathetic window on a way of life little glimpsed in contemporary fiction.'
* The Financial Times *'A lovely, very funny and touching account of a marriage in orthodox Jewry.'
* The Spectator *Eve Harris was born to Israeli-Polish parents in Chiswick, West London. She has worked as a teacher in London and Tel Aviv, and her time at an all girls' ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in North West London inspired this book.