A Single Life: A Novel

A Single Life: A Novel. Daniel Ross Goodman. Brooklyn, New York: KTAV Publishing House, 2020.

Much of Daniel Goodman’s debut novel takes place in the mind of the main character, Eli Newman. Eli is filled with angst about women, dating, and whether he’ll ever find someone to marry. At 31, he’s way past the age most yeshiva (Jewish seminary) students like him marry. His friends, their mothers, and matchmakers constantly try to “fix” him up with someone suitable for this observant Jewish scholar. The reader also learns the details of Eli’s disastrous dates.

Early in A Single Life, Eli starts a new job teaching Talmud, classical Jewish texts, in a co-ed Hebrew High School in Connecticut. There he meets Emma Yates, a lapsed Catholic English and French teacher. They are attracted to each other and begin a relationship, at first through Facebook, then emails, Gmail video chat, and finally Skype. As Eli sees that Emma is increasingly interested in him, his excitement builds, though he struggles between his desire to get to know her and his Orthodox Judaic ethics. The reader wonders how this relationship could possible work; how such an observant Jew like Eli could even consider a non-Jewish girl as a future wife. However, the story is also believable and understandable because Emma is the first woman who has responded to Eli. She’s also bright, attractive, and interesting.

Through Eli and Emma’s conversations, the reader learns more about Eli’s background. The author does a slow reveal of Eli’s back story and enjoys surprising the reader who suspects Eli is black, but isn’t sure until Emma asks about his family. It is about halfway through the book before we discover that his African American mother died young and his Ashkenazic rabbi father was very strict with him. His father also made a decision to transfer Eli from his co-ed Jewish day school in Houston to an all-male yeshiva in Baltimore where he excelled in the study of the classical Jewish texts, but was being trained to do only one thing, to be a Talmudic scholar.

Goodman reveals Eli’s dreams and fantasies about his new relationship, and through his emails with old yeshiva friends and phone calls with their mother/matchmakers, we learn more about him. But we don’t learn very much about his students and fellow faculty at his present job, or what he teaches. The story revolves very much around Eli and Emma and the monologues in Eli’s head.

This novel is steeped in the authentic voice of a yeshiva student. Goodman accomplishes this by adding footnotes at the bottom of the book’s pages that translate and explain the words and phrases Eli uses. This yeshiva student language, or Yeshivish, is a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic mixed in with English. Thus the reader “hears” what a yeshiva student sounds like, which adds to the story and makes the novel accessible to a wider range of readers, including those who don’t know any of these languages, the culture or classical texts. Eli uses Standard English with non -yeshiva students. Yet Eli is no ordinary yeshiva student. He reads widely in world literature by sneaking books into his dorm room and reading late into the night. And because of being biracial, Eli has experiences other yeshiva students don’t have, such as his not- so- friendly interactions in the dating world and with police.

Eli’s thoughts, angst, dreams, his conversations with Emma and his yeshiva friends, his fantasies of what it would be like to be married to Emma are all engaging to read. In addition, his slow reveal of Eli’s story keeps the reader in suspense and interested until the surprising ending. The novel left me wanting to know more about Eli’s back story and his future.

Print