The Ladies Auxiliary: A Novel [Paperback]

When free-spirited Batsheva moves into the close-knit Orthodox community of Memphis, Tennessee, the already precarious relationship between the Ladies Auxiliary and their teenage daughters is shaken to the core. In this extraordinary novel, Tova Mirvis takes us into the fascinating and insular world of the Memphis Orthodox Jews, one ripe with tradition and contradiction. Warm and wise, enchanting and funny, The Ladies Auxiliary brilliantly illuminates the timeless struggle between mothers and daughters, family and self, religious freedom and personal revelation, honoring the past and facing the future. An unforgettable story of uncommon atmosphere, profound insight, and winning humor, The Ladies Auxiliary is a triumphant work of fiction."A SPARKLING DEBUT . . . A graceful novel with a strong sense of place, with vivid characters that are as Southern as the black-eyed peas they serve for Shabbat dinner, as Jewish as their homemade challah."
--Jewish Week

"MIRVIS EVOKES [ORTHODOX MEMPHIS] WITH COMPASSION AND TELLING DETAIL."
--Detroit Free Press

"Poignant, funny, sophisticated . . . The Orthodox answer to The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."
--MademoiselleTova Mirvisis the national bestselling author ofVisible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary. Her essays have appeared in various publications including the New York Times,Good Housekeeping, and Poets and Writers, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She was a Scholar in Residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University, and Visiting Scholar at The Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center. She received an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. She lives in Massachusetts with her three children.

1. The novel opens with an almost pastoral description of Memphis's Jewish neighborhood, typologically evoking a "city on the hill&qlÛ