Sacha Lamb

An angel and a demon have been friends for centuries, studying together in a synagogue in the old world, when the demon decides that they should leave and go to the states since everyone else seems to be escaping. He convinces the angel to go with him by saying that they should find a local young woman who immigrated but whose family hasn’t heard from her.

This one won several awards, but I can’t really understand why. I didn’t care about any of the characters and had trouble feigning interest in the plot. The “an angel and a demon are in love despite everything (including themselves) and work together to save the world” thing has been done elsewhere – pretty famously – and done *much* better. Just go reread that one or rewatch the show.… (más)

Okay, so I have to begin by saying this was almost custom-written for me, and it does reflect in a higher rating than the story itself may deserve. But. I will explain.

When the Angels Left the Old Country tells the story of sheyd Little Ash and angel Uriel, on a mission to find a girl from their shtetl in New York. Along the way the two meet Rose, and the three become entangled in a larger plot of family strikers, mob bosses, and evil factory owners. It's a fascinating functionalization of the early 20th century of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to New York City—a history so popular but so rarely from the point of view of, well, frum characters. The film Hester Street is one I can think of off the top of my head, but early New York (and America, as Lamb imbues in their work as well) is not the old country, and what's more old country than peyot and a bracha?



The joy in reading this novel came from the excruciating love and detail that Lamb brings to the work. It takes unabashed pride to write a story with the sentence "They [...] could be seen davening in the back of the shul at minyan" on the first page—this book is semi-indecipherable, especially in the beginning, to those without the foreknowledge to understand the meaning and consequential characterization these additions provide.

I enjoyed the first half of this novel more than the last, but this is entirely my own taste. Lamb has a firm grasp of Yiddish literature and I saw the importance of the story The Book of Paradise: The Wonderful Adventures of Shmuel-Aba Abervo plays in it. The beginning has an indisputable neo-chasidic style, and reminded me of the bits of literature and memoirs we have of shtetl life. Again, Lamb is incredibly well-versed in this world, which made reading this novel such a treat. Who doesn't love a "may her name be erased" and the image of an angel having to talk down a mezuzah because a sheyd won't kiss it? Who?

This inclusion of Jewish history obviously continues into New York, and I was very happy to see the inclusion of striking garment workers, soulless Reform Synagogues, and the tension of previously immigrated German Jews trying to understand their role with the new wave of Eastern European Jews. There were plenty of easter eggs to enjoy in this part of the story too, including Little Ash calling Uriel "little bird" (it's faygele, a gay slur, lmaooo) and the latter not knowing what prayer to say over soda.

Anyway, lots of thoughts with this one. There were the roots of something deeper always under the current, so to speak, but I don't know if they ever fully developed. I found something so sad about the idea of the angel of a town leaving for America—I was looking for deeper symbolism for the larger Yiddish/Aramaic/English, New World/Old World, Frum/Secular tensions that are so ubiquitous in discussions of Yiddish literature (and the larger sphere of just Jewish literature). Would it not have been poetic for Uriel to lose his angelic qualities completely in coming to America—representing the symbolic loss of old-world superstition, religious observance, and "goodness" in exchange for American freedoms of capital, individuality, and politicization? Much to think about. Maybe too big of an ask for a Young Adult novel...

The story "suffered" only in that I don't care much for young adult literature, and I found the relative indestructibility of the characters, the emphasis on narrative over internal development, and the themes of identity generally too juvenile for my taste. The last third of the novel was not for me, but again, tastes. I absolutely hated the novel Good Omens, so ignore that comparison too if that's not up you're alley. I was here for a "Yiddish" novel written in 2022, not for teens fighting crime. I would absolutely still recommend the book though, even for those not interested in young adult literature. If I was younger I could have bought into more, but I'm old and jaded.… (más)