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    Washing the Dead
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    Washing the Dead
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    Washing the Dead
    Ebook412 pages4 hours

    Washing the Dead

    By Michelle Brafman

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Three Orthodox Jewish women search for truth amid a lifetime of secrets in this “heartfelt story of loss, hope, and reconciliation” (Booklist).
     
    Barbara Blumfield, a big-hearted suburban Milwaukee mom and preschool teacher, was seventeen years old when her mother’s affair ripped her family from their Orthodox Jewish community. When the rabbi’s wife summons Barbara to perform the ritual burial washing of her beloved teacher, she walks back into the spiritual and emotional home her mother burned down. Exhuming generations of secrets is the only way Barbara can forgive her estranged mother and in turn spare her daughter their crippling family legacy.
     
    Michelle Brafman’s “fast-paced and compelling” debut novel examines the experience of religious community, the perilous emotional path to adulthood, and the power of sacred rituals to repair damaged bonds between mothers and daughters (Library Journal).
     
    “Intimate, big-hearted, compassionate and clear-eyed, Brafman’s novel turns secrets into truths and the truth into the heart of fiction.” —Amy Bloom, author of Lucky Us and Away
     
    “From roots in one religious tradition, comes a tale of emotional redemption for all of us. Michelle Brafman’s astonishing compassion for all human frailty infuses this story about the need for truth and the promise of forgiveness.” —Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMar 16, 2015
    ISBN9781938849527
    Unavailable
    Washing the Dead
    Author

    Michelle Brafman

    Michelle Brafman is a Washington, DC-based writer, teacher, and writing coach. She has received numerous awards for her fiction, including a Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her work has appeared in Slate, Tablet, the Minnesota Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, and numerous other publications. She also contributes to the Lilith blog and teaches fiction writing at the Johns Hopkins University MA in Writing Program. Her new novel, Washing the Dead, will be published by Prospect Park Books in June of 2015.

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    Reviews for Washing the Dead

    4/5

    6 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      There are certain things that I, and most people, look for in a work of fiction: an interesting story, well-developed characters, descriptions that are apt and bring the reader into a time and place, interesting plot twists, and, not least of all, solid writing. Ms. Brafman has rung the bell in all categories in this truly exceptional novel. Her protagonist, Barbara Blumfield, is introduced to the reader in two different time lines. First, as a teenager growing up in a very orthodox Jewish community and then as a mature woman, raising her own daughter in a family that is much more casual about observance. The circumstances of Barbara's life, her conflicted relationship with her mother, her longing for her childhood beliefs and the resolution of the mysteries surrounding her mother's life, are expertly woven together to give the reader an insight into the life of this woman that is stunningly honest and very real. As an aside, the Gentile reader is offered much insight and information about Jewish beliefs and observances, in which the author never resorts to expository writing. The reader is informed, but never bored. This is not a particularly short book, but compelling enough that I read it in two long sittings and enjoyed the entire experience. I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      This book about the relationships between 3 generations of Jewish women is outstanding and gave me a vivid insight into Jewish traditions, old and newer. Each character is well-drawn and robust. I felt as though I knew them well by the end of the book - even characters who have relatively minor roles. It is spiritual in a way that might appeal to anyone of any faith or spiritual indication.
    • 5/5
      What a great story about the always complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. I didn't know much about the Orthodox Jewish Community in which this story is both set and entwined. The story goes back and forth between the 70s and 2009. At some points when the storyteller, Barbara, was a teenager, I could see the appeal of having something clear to reject and also return to. This theme repeated itself as the religion of her childhood was no longer practiced, but was never forgotten. The resiliency of the mother daughter relationship astonishes me.
    • 5/5
      Washing the Dead by Michelle BrafmanDid you ever feel like you’re a member of a group until you find out that you aren’t? You may seek explanations, search for hidden stories, do outlandish things, and find yourself on an entirely different path. Michelle Brafman effectively dramatizes this in “Washing the Dead.” Picture a mansion once filled with family, friends and lovely parties. Now picture it being transformed into a Jewish Orthodox temple, Mikveh included. Pious, structured, austere and quiet. Inside the sacred traditions of an exclusive community are glimpsed and vetted out for readers unawares. “Washing the Dead” is a full bodied narrative which details rite and ritual three times and in three different ways for three different purposes. Themes of loss and transformation are woven as narrator and daughter, Barbara Pupnick-Blumfeld learns the backstory of her mother’s emotional decline. Barabara, once nestled in the Orthodox fold is propelled out into the broader world and discovers who she is beyond their rules and practices. While this sounds empowering, it is entirely painful, confusing, scary and not her choice. A patchwork of moments from three generations of women from one family are stitched together as narrative time moves forward and backward. Each woman, young and old carries a central conflict which culminates in crystal clarity at the story’s end.Brafman shows us that we pass more down to one another than DNA. We pass our story, our pain, our triumph, our discovery, and our evolution. In a delicate manner, “Washing the Dead” raises the questions: During our final moments, who is there to witness? Who is there to send us off? How do they come to this moment and how do they leave?
    • 4/5
      This was a wonderful story about forgiveness between mothers and daughters, while set in a Jewish orthodox environment. The title stems from a ritual performed on the body before burial and the honor of doing it. The author, Brafman,describes all of this with such beauty, refinement and care that I didn't want the book to end. Her prose is such a pleasure to read,with such a wealth of description and knowledge of what happens between families and close relationships when secrets are kept. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      “My mother’s mood hovered over us, a mist that could either turn to rain or vanish into the sunlight.” That sentence perfectly captured memories of my own mother, and it sets the tone for Michelle Brafman’s novel. It is an intimate look into the lives of women inside an orthodox Jewish community told through the voice of a daughter searching for answers about her mother. Barbara’s mother is a woman of secrets and extreme vacillating moods, and Barbara takes on the role of emotional caretaker, becoming her protector. The only adults who can help keep her mother grounded are Chasidic Jews; Rabbi Schine and his wife the rebbetzin who head the synagogue. The synagogue is an old stately mansion on the banks of Lake Michigan, and it is the center of their lives, until something happens and Barbara’s family has to leave. As an adult, Barbara now has her own daughter Lili, and she desperately wants healing from a past full of betrayals and loss that have haunted her and have overlapped into her relationship with Lili. Her journey towards that healing begins when she learns that an old friend has died and she is asked to return to the community and participate in a sacred ritual of washing the dead, which is called tahara. Reading this book was an emotional ride for me—from the mother daughter relationship to the look inside the Jewish ceremonies; I’m grateful to have read this. There are many subplots, some bittersweet like when Barbara looks back at her confusing coming of age travel to San Diego, California. I laughed and cried and so related to some of the things she went though, and I think this novel would appeal to a wide group of people: from older teens to adult. 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Washing the Dead is part Coming of Age story, part study of the relationship between mothers and daughters. The story revolves around Barbara, a woman raised in a very close-knit Orthodox Jewish community and forced to leave it during her teen years when her mother commits adultery. Many years later, her troubled relationship with her estranged mother threatens to influence her relationship with her own teenage daughter. Then the death of a beloved teacher calls Barbara back to her childhood community when she is asked to help perform the ritual washing of the dead woman's body. At that point, Barbara must learn to make peace with her past in order to get her present life in order. It is a fascinating look at the way rituals can bring peace and security to a person's life and gives insight into Orthodox Jewish customs.
    • 4/5
      Thank you to LibraryThing for allowing me to preview this amazing book. The story is about June,a woman with many dark secrets and her daughter Barbara who tries to love and protect her. They are both comforted by the friendship and the rituals of the Orthodox Jewish community to which they belong. Washing the Dead is a sacred ritual performed by this community to ready their dead for burial. Michelle Brafman has said that the ritual allows her character Barbara to loosen a brick in the wall that she's built around her heart and in turn return home,to her mother and her lost spiritual community. Although sad, the book is uplifting and hopeful. A must read!
    • 4/5
      Fifty-something Barbara Blumfield emerged from a troubled adolescence to build a happy family life with her husband, Sam, and teenage daughter, Lili. Her adult life is very different from her childhood, which was centered in an Orthodox shul in Milwaukee. An invitation to participate in the tahara – a ceremonial washing of the dead – for her mentor, Mrs. Kessler, brings back long-buried feelings and memories. Barbara's ties to the shul and her best friend, Tzippy, had been severed at the same time as her relationship with her mother,and Barbara still mourns their loss. Barbara needs to resolve her anger before Alzheimer's renders her mother incapable of answering Barbara's questions.Barbara's story alternates between her coming of age in 1973-1974 and the present day (2009). In the beginning, the teenage Barbara and the fifty-something Barbara seem secure and happy in their lives – the teenage Barbara in the rhythms of Orthodox practice and the adult Barbara as a wife, mother, and professional, but no longer practicing Orthodox Judaism. It's evident that Barbara didn't gradually drift away from the Orthodox life. Something momentous happened, and the memory of it is still powerful enough to threaten the life Barbara has built. The meditative pace and the alternation of the troubled teenaged Barbara with the healthy adult Barbara keep her story from becoming too depressing to read. It's a beautiful, moving exploration of relationships – mothers and daughters, friends, mentors, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and lovers. It is well-suited for book clubs since it raises so many issues worthy of discussion - religion, depression, illness (both physical and mental), aging, shame, and belonging.This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
    • 4/5
      We are all part of communities. It can be reassuring to be a part of a community, whether it be one we chose or one we were born into. We feel belonging and acceptance in communities. We understand and cherish the traditions and rituals of the groups to whom we belong. In fact, often times our communities define us. So if we are exiled from a community, we find ourselves adrift, hurt, and rejected. In Michelle Brafman's new novel, Washing the Dead, main character Barbara Blumfield must examine the severed bonds of community in order to find forgiveness for her mother and for herself. Alternating mainly between the mid-1970s and 2009, Barbara Pupnick Blumfield tells the story of her Orthodox Jewish youth, the rupture that pushed her family away from their community, her strained relationship with her mother, and the more secular Jewish life she's created as an adult. As Barbara struggles to mother her own troubled teenaged daughter Lili, she must examine the things that influenced her to become the woman and mother that she is. She reflects on the way that her own mother failed her, abandoning the family through depression and the sadness of her unshared, secret past, and the way that her mother continues to abandon her, disappearing into an ever increasing Alzheimer's fog. It is in examining her memories of her teenaged years that she faces the life-altering rupture from the Orthodox community she knew and loved and all the reasons behind her long exile from that safe and comfortable community of her childhood. When the rebbetzin of the shul in Milwaukee calls on the middle-aged Barbara, telling her that her mentor Mrs. Kessler has died and offers to have Barbara participate in washing the body, a final act of love, preparing Mrs. Kesssler for burial, it allows Barbara to start her search for answers about her own youth even as she deals with Lili's rebellion in the face of a season ending sports injury. This is a coming of age novel, even though Barbara long ago became an adult. But in the present, she can see how the early inversion of the mother-daughter dynamic between she and her mother colored so much of her life. As a girl she tried to protect her mother from sorrows and trespassings without understanding the impetus behind any of it. And as her mother loses her memories to the ravages of disease, she cannot fully piece together the secret history of her family that exacerbated her mother's descent into deep depression without the help of those whom she holds liable for so much hurt. The narrative moves fluidly forwards and backwards through time, detailing the long ranging impact and the ripples that continue to push outward even in Barbara's present. The story is a quiet one. Barbara as a character sometimes comes across as far younger than she really is, still just learning to accept imperfections in those she loves. The storyline with Lili is very secondary and therefore doesn't quite compliment the whole as well as it might have. But Brafman has given us a well developed inside look at an orthodox community and the women in it, their failings and their love, in the primary storyline. Writing movingly of connection, the pain over a loss of culture, and the power of forgiveness, this book offers an unusual insight into a complex, generally reserved, and separate community.
    • 5/5
      compelling story. uplifting read
    • 4/5
      Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and Prospect Parks for providing me with a finished copy of Washing the Dead to read and review. Washing the Dead details the struggle of Barbara Blumfield to come to grips with her mother's perceived abandonment of the family and to try to reconcile their relationship. There are several other issues that she's dealing with that make this goal difficult to achieve which are her daughter's struggle with a sports injury and her ADD and also her mother's Alzheimers which becomes progressively worse throughout the book. The book moves back and forth from the present day to Barbara's teen years in the seventies. The flashbacks in the book help the reader learn what lead up to Barbara's break from Orthodox Judaism as well as what caused the rift in the relationship with her mother. I thought Washing Dead was at its best when it was detailing the traditions and rituals of the church but fell a little flat when it came to Barbara and her personal relationships. I felt so frustrated with Barbara at times because she seemed to be more focused on all the negative things in her life rather than focusing on the positive. Also, at times I thought her character was a bit petty and came off as being a bit immature for a middle aged woman. Overall the book was well written and I enjoyed it enough that I would check out other titles by this author.
    • 2/5
      This book is about the relationships between women, especially mothers and daughters. Not being familiar with the Orthodox Jewish religion, much was lost for me in this book. The symbolism and rituals were not understood. As is true with most mothers and daughters, there were difficulties and misunderstandings that were never fully resolved in this book. Admittedly, it took me quite a while to read this one.