A re-telling of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, Francesca Segal’s debut The Innocents (Chatto, £14.99) takes the action to contemporary Golders Green. The daily minutiae of Jewish life are documented, from eating challah at Shabbat to the moments preceding a circumcision, alongside more sweeping statements: ‘For a people whose history is one of exodus and eviction,’ says Segal about ritual meals, ‘the luxury of repetition is precious.’
Both the cosiness and insularity of the community are described, particularly as it comes together in moments of celebration:
‘Friday night dinner’ is one of the most evocative phrases in the vocabulary of any Jew — up there in significance with ‘my son the doctor’ and ‘my daughter’s wedding’.
Our young hero, Adam Newman, is due to marry Rachel Gilbert but is led astray by his desire for her cousin Ellie Schnieder, a beautiful but damaged model. The characters are well-realised, touching and fallible, their relationships complicated — except for that between Adam and Ellie; the two hardly exchange any words, suggesting their affair is based almost entirely on physical desire.
Segal is especially good on guilt, as Adam’s betrayal and yearning for adventure lead him away from the wine bars of NW11. In the end, however, the ethos of ‘the Noah’s Ark of Temple Fortune’ prevails: the animals go in two by two and no change is realised.
The Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli has been getting a lot of publicity, not least for her youth and looks, but Faces in the Crowd (Granta, £12.99) will in time be remembered for its own beauty, and not just for that of its author. This is a literary book, full of allusions to other writers, beginning with its title, which comes from Pound.
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