On Division

The acclaimed author shares a “wonderfully entrancing” tale of family secrets and self-discovery in a Brooklyn Chasidic community (Lit Hub).

Winner of the 2020 Jewish Fiction Award

On Division Avenue, just a block up from the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her ten children range in age from thirteen to thirty-nine. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and her husband Yidel have a happy marriage and a full life. But into this life of counted blessings comes a surprise. At fifty-seven years old, Surie is pregnant.

It is a shock. An aberration. A public display of private life. Surie feels exposed, ashamed. She is unable to share the news, even with her husband. And so, for the first time in her life, she has a secret—one that slowly separates her from the community.

Goldie Goldbloom’s On Division is an excavation of one woman’s life, a story of awakening at middle age, and a thoughtful examination of the dynamics of self and collective identity. It is a rare portrait of a long, happy marriage, and a steady-eyed look inside insular communities that also celebrates their comforts.