Happy New Years

This subtle epistolary novel from Arad (The Hebrew Teacher) comprises 50 years’ worth of letters sent by a woman to her former classmates at an Israeli teacher’s college on Rosh Hashana. Though ostensibly filled with good cheer, Leah Zuckerman’s letters are also comically passive-aggressive, due to her long-running resentment toward the others for looking down on her as an immigrant from Romania. This context becomes apparent in separate, more candid versions of the letters, which she sends to Mira, her closest friend from the group. The reader learns of Leah’s disappointments following graduation in 1966, when she’s tricked by the head of the college into moving to Massachusetts for a nonexistent teaching opportunity. She marries and has two sons, but her gambler husband deserts the family. She continues forming disastrous relationships with men and finally comes clean to Mira about a traumatic incident that happened in Israel and drove a wedge between them. Whether in cleverly ironic depictions of Leah’s inflated self-regard, passages that reveal the depth of her homesickness, or scenes showing her resilience, Arad elicits sympathy for her complex lead. This will move readers. (Aug.)