Pride and Preference
The interview with author, Barbara Bensoussan
Photo by Elaine Howlin on Unsplash
Every year after Pesach it takes me a few days to get back to normal life. As this year, coincided with the anniversary of my mother-in-law's passing, it took a bit longer. My mother-in-law was an avid reader. So it's unfortunate that she will never get to read any of my books. But I'm sure she'd be happy that I'm continuing to do this. She was always very supportive of me. So I'm dedicating this post to her.
Like many Jewish homes, ours is stuffed with books. Despite this, we will regularly go to the library to get more books. The more the merrier. It happens that near us we also have a Jewish library with frum books for kids, teens, and adults. While it's not the size of our public library, there are still many books there. However, to my knowledge, there's only one book there that the frum (religious) library has twice: Pride and Preference by Barbara Bensoussan.
I'm very grateful that I have the opportunity to interview Barbara about her novel. If you read the previous post, you know that we both wrote a Jewish Pride and Prejudice retelling.
So, Barbara, what do you think makes Pride and Preference so appealing to frum readers?
Barbara:
Everybody loves a shidduch (matchmaking) story, and Pride and Prejudice is an all-time favorite that lent itself so easily to frum society! It appeals as a kind of Cinderella tale of deserving but impoverished girls who are swept away by rich princes. It appeals through that beloved hate-to-love trope.
Frum readers can identify with the themes of snobbery, money, looks, being vetted for shidduchim, and the way loshon hara can wreak havoc on a shidduch.
I also loved including a sister who's "at-risk," and a sincere but pedantic young rabbi who is unappealing to Aliza but is just fine for her supremely realistic, 29-year-old friend Charna.
What reader reaction most surprised you?
Barbara:
As a writer, you never know where your "babies" will end up. Someone on FB posted a picture of my book that was taken out of a library in Washington State--go figure! I wrote the book for a frum audience, but my Irish Catholic college roommate enjoyed it despite being unfamiliar with the Yiddish and Hebrew words. When I made it into an e-book, I made sure to include a glossary. One reader told me she and her friends had actually memorized passages of the book, which was very flattering! I even stumbled across a discussion of the book on a podcast called Hanukaherotica (which didn't seem to include much in the way ot erotica, just two Jewish girls discussing romance books).
On the back of your book is a small box, warning that this book contains sensitive material. How did this affect your writing for a frum audience? Where do you draw the line between modesty in fiction and realism?
Barbara:
The publisher was obliged to write that about "sensitive material," because some very sensitive frum readers might find it shocking that young men and women speak to each other in my book (even though every encounter is accidental, brief, and chaperoned!). A woman in England actually proposed to review the book and later declined because she said she had heard men and women engaged in conversations in the book! I explained to her that everything was very above-board, but she still refused! I am definitely not as holy as her, nor do I aspire to be.
I don't feel it's necessary to describe physical intimacy in novels, but emotions are important, such as a young woman feeling butterflies when she meets a date, or becoming depressed when a shidduch flops. Given the choice, I might have been even more open in my book, but I knew who my audience is. And as far as publishers are concerned, if your book is so risqué that the rabbis start to ban it, then the bookstores return all the copies to the publisher, and everybody loses.
We both noticed the overlap of Regency proprietary and Orthodox Jewish society. But interactions between Orthodox boys and girls can often face even more boundaries. What do you think secular media often gets wrong about Orthodox Jewish dating?
Barbara:
Secular media often assumes Orthodox people have arranged marriages, it’s really arranged dating. When my children used to criticize the shidduch system, I would tell them, “How do you propose to meet your spouse? At a bar? On the subway?” Then I’d tell them shidduch dating is like democracy - it’s the worst system, except for every other system of finding a spouse. With shidduchim, both sets of parents are on board before a couple starts dating. Hence there's no "My mother never liked you." Potential spouses are vetted for similar goals and compatibility before they even meet. Their parents make sure they will get the support they need as they finish their educations and begin life together. All this gives them a tremendous headstart and better chances for a successful marriage!
The secular world also frowns that we marry relatively young, but couples in frum society are expected to be celibate until marriage, and marriage is seen as something holy. So you don't force people to wait till their thirties to have adult relationships. Is the secular world -where teens regularly engage in promiscuous behavior from very young ages - any better? Those young people are deprived of knowing what intimacy is like in the context of respect, responsibility, family support, and sanctity. So is the shidduch system crazy or pragmatic?
Barbara certainly has a point about modern secular dating norms. With so much misogyny dumped all over the internet and treatment-resistant STDs becoming more common, isn’t a more respectful conduct desirable? In Austen’s novels men with propriety and morals are heroes, whereas philandering men are villains. Politeness and respect are virtues, which is why I think many readers love her work. So to finish off the interview, I asked Barbara some Austen-related questions.
Other than your own work, what is your favorite Pride and Prejudice version, and why?
Barbara:
The BBC film adaptation was well done. I can't think of any books offhand, but one version I did NOT enjoy was Curtis Sittenfeld's version, Eligible. After all the hype I read I was looking forward to it, but then I found the characters selfish and unlikeable, and they certainly didn't adhere to the same codes of morality as Torah-observant Jews.
Will there ever be a sequel to Pride and Preference? Inquiring readers want to know.
Barbara:
I've thought about a sequel many times. What happens to Shaina and Aliza as they grapple with a wholly new socioeconomic status? Does Miri find her talmid chacham, and Yael her rich husband?
I would especially like to show Liora grow up and find her strengths after her turbulent adolescence. Let's say Nachum develops a serious gambling addiction after they have a child or two, and she has to cope with it and survive in some way. I could see her becoming an advocate for spouses of gamblers and learning to find her way in the world without him (or with a reformed version of him).
It also occurred to me to do P & P over again in a Sephardic milieu, but I think there would be too much overlap to make it new and fresh.
Is there any other Jane Austen novel you would like to retell in a Jewish setting?
Barbara:
It's already happening! Many of my readers begged for another Austen variation, but not all her novels lend themselves to frum versions (usually because of the amount of male-female interaction). But I decided Persuasion would work well for the frum community. It's about a woman whose family forced her to give up a shidduch at age 19 because they felt the young man wasn't good enough for her. Eight years later, she's still unmarried, and so is he, and he comes back to town newly wealthy and eligible. Does he hate her for the rejection, or can he forgive her? Can she learn to stand up for what she wants?
There are also financial issues in this novel: The girl comes from a once-wealthy family that has bankrupted itself through reckless overspending, and they're forced to rent out their home and move somewhere else to catch up on debt. (I had them leave a stately Flatbush home for a rental in Toms River). So again you have issues of money and class.
The book will be running as a serial in the Jewish Press, under the title “Persuaded,” starting May 16th, and I hope to publish it as a book afterwards!
I’m looking forward to reading Persuaded! If like me you live outside the distribution area of the Jewish Press, you can still find the paper online. Click here to find the eEdition, released every Friday.
With love,
Telem ❤️