The Mystics of Mile End

Name: The Mystics of Mile End
ISBN: 9780062412188

A Novel

Sigal Samuel

WINNER OF THE CANADIAN JEWISH LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION

A Jewish family navigates faith, loss, and the chaos of modern life in this "remarkable debut . . . with a profound sense of empathy." —Simon Van Booy, author of Everything Beautiful Began After

In the half-Hasidic, half-hipster Montreal neighborhood of Mile End, eleven-year-old Lev Meyer is discovering that there may be a place for Judaism in his life. As he learns about science in his day school, Lev begins his own extracurricular study of the Bible's Tree of Knowledge with neighbor Mr. Katz, who is building his own Tree out of trash. Meanwhile his sister Samara is secretly studying for her Bat Mitzvah with next-door neighbor and Holocaust survivor, Mr. Glassman. All the while his father, David, a professor of Jewish mysticism, is a non-believer.

When, years later, David has a heart attack, he begins to believe God is speaking to him. While having an affair with one of his students, he delves into the complexities of Kabbalah. Months later Samara, too, grows obsessed with the Kabbalah's Tree of Life—hiding her interest from those who love her most–and is overcome with reaching the Tree's highest heights. The neighbors of Mile End have been there all along, but only one of them can catch her when she falls.

About the Author

Sigal Samuel is a novelist and journalist whose work returns again and again to Jewish mysticism, family, and inheritance. She comes from an Iraqi Jewish family in Montreal and was raised in the city’s Orthodox community. Her debut novel, The Mystics of Mile End, follows a dysfunctional Montreal family caught between Kabbalah, madness, and mathematics. It won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for fiction and an Alberta Book Publishing Award, and was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her children’s book Osnat and Her Dove: The True Story of the World’s First Female Rabbi (illustrated by Vali Mintzi) retells the legend of the sixteenth-century Kurdish Jewish scholar Osnat Barzani. It won a 2021 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the children/youth category and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.

Samuel is also a staff writer at Vox’s Future Perfect, where she covers artificial intelligence, neuroscience, ethics, and the intersection of technology and religion. She previously served as religion editor at The Atlantic, opinion editor at the Forward, and associate editor at The Daily Beast. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and a BA in philosophy from McGill University.