Mara

Mara, a Jewish girl from Riverside Drive, marries a hippie from Israel whom everyone distrusts, in an Orthodox wedding. Tova Reich's debut novel (1978) follows the couple and the families and traditions around them. Critics praised its irreverent, hard-edged comedy and compared its wit to Swift and Evelyn Waugh. Newsweek called it outrageous, and Harper's noted the extraordinary energy that runs through it from the first page. Syracuse University Press reissued the novel in paperback in 2001.

“It is evident from the very first page of Mara that an extraordinary energy is at work. The opening scene, an Orthodox wedding uniting Mara, a Jewish girl from Riverside Drive, with a hippie from Israel whom everyone distrusts, floats up into life with an unmistakable and spontaneous buoyancy.” —Harper's

“Mara is startling, playful and irreverent. It has none of the pieties you would expect in a book cluttered with wedding canopies, crocheted skullcaps, ritual baths, and the Hebrew bill of divorcement.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Reich's voice is a striking one: she has a gift for outrageous, hard-edged comedy that Evelyn Waugh might have appreciated.” —Newsweek