Deesha Philyaw – The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Deesha Philyaw – The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Deesha Philyaw’s collection of nine short stories about Black women gives insight in a life behind closed doors, rules unknown to many of us, a secret double life nobody sees or wants to see. The book was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction and was awarded, among others, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Los Angeles Book prize. All stories centre around Black women and Christianity highlighting contradictions and hypocrisy and also a group of women who accept their place given to them by powerful men. They all endure the double discrimination of being Black and being a woman – until they don’t anymore.

What most women share is the fact that they lead a kind of double life they are forced into. For the outside word, they dress decently, lead a God abiding life, do not speak up and care for their children. Yet, at home, behind the closed door, among themselves, they speak freely, they know that even the clergymen have bodily needs they fulfil. They are not perfect, often far from, but they try to make the best of it and teach their daughters what they need to know about life and its double-standards.

The variety of women we get to know is large, from homosexual spinsters still searching for husbands, over half-sisters mourning their always unfaithful father, to a young girl who finally comes to understand that how easily you can be trapped in a situation where wen exert power over you and your body.

The author captures the decisive moment when desires and religious rules collide. They need to cope with contradictions, build their lives around it, always threatened by the verdict of the public and the parish. They are never free, not even those who try to flee from the south, who work and study hard for a better life – ultimately, it all comes back to them.

The tone is funny at times, desperate and harsh at others, always reflecting the characters’ moods on the one hand, which, on the other, will often not leave their house or even their body. The collection shows a life hidden, a life in the shadow of big and strong men, a life worth narrating.

Rivka Galchen – Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

Rivka Galchen – Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

Even though the Middle Ages are over, superstition and strange beliefs are still widespread among people. Thus, in 1615, Katharina Kepler finds herself accused of witchcraft by the people of her hometown of Leonberg in southern Germany. Times are hard, the Plague is spreading the Thirty Years’ War has just begun and somebody must be blamed for all the things happening. Katharina is an elderly widow, illiterate and mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler. She leads a simple life, attending to her cow Chamomile. One day, however, Ursula Reinbold, accuses her of witchcraft, having offered a bitter drink which allegedly poisoned her, and surprisingly, the court not only listens but more and more people come forwards with testimonies of Katharina’s ill-doing. Only her neighbour, old Simon, who prefers to keep to himself, stands by her side.

Rivka Galchen’s story is based on a true story, Johannes Kepler’s mother was a healer and herbalist and arrested for witchcraft. The famous son stopped his research in planetary motion to defend his mother. Not only Katharina became victim of this kind of accusation, the town’s advocate Lutherus Einhorn accused 15 women in one trial and had executed eight of them in 1615.

At first, Katharina doesn’t take the accusation seriously, it is just talk for her, until she is put to prison and has to learn that more and more people come forward with other stories which seem to underline her doing black magic. She tries to counter the attack by accusing Ursula and her husband of slander, yet, her own case vanishes somewhere in the depth of local jurisprudence.

“We all know she’s a witch. We’ve always know. The matter of how we came to know is simple – we already knew.”

The accusations brought forward rage from poisoning, causing lameness, several deaths, injuring a woman’s foot, harming numerous people and animals – a long list which is getting more and more absurd during the story. I liked the interrogations of the inhabitants since they show not only the superstition they fall prey to, but also the dynamics of a small town which turns against one woman. Everything ill that has ever happened is simply attributed to Katharina. The allegations are so ridiculous that you could laugh weren’t it for Katharina’s case and the fact that the people’s testimonies seem to be believed.

Even though the plot is based on a well-documented historical case, you can see more or less the same thing happening today. It is not the small town anymore, but the world wide web in which often just one single person brings forward an accusation – no need for proof anymore – and masses jump on the bandwagon and have their twitter trial even before the issue is sorted out. It doesn’t matter if the accused is later discharged or not, the only thing that counts is public opinion which is quick at passing a sentence.

An entertaining read which outlines the dark sides of human nature – envy, greed, malicious gossip – and the danger that might come from it.

J. S. Margot – Mazel Tov

J.S. Margot – Mazel Tov

Even though the interview went rather poorly, the Schneider family employs the narrator as a tutor for their four children. The two boys cope with school quite well, but the oldest daughter Elzira struggles and needs support. The children do not go to an ordinary school, just like the family is not the ordinary Antwerp family. They are Orthodox Jews and with her tutoring job, the doors to a completely new world open for the young student. Gradually, she does not actually become a member of the family but they grow totally fond of her and even when the kids have grown up, they not only stay in contact but support each when they are in need.

The Flemish journalist and novelist Margot Vanderstraeten narrates her encounter with the Jewish community at the beginning of the 1990s when she was a student. She is quite young, only a couple of years the children’s senior when she first enters their life and thus can only wonder about what she sees and learns about the family’s faith, the different types of Judaism and a life in her hometown of which she did not have the least idea.

She is confronted with a lot of contradictions and unbelievable concepts, however, she also learns that they can provide anchors in life and give orientation in the modern world. Over the years, she also understands why some Jews prefer to keep to themselves and why all of them always have a passport at hand. At times funny, at times pensive – the novel gives insight in an unknown world without judging any way of life or religion. It is a wonderful memoir which first of all shows how people can bond even though, at first, they could hardly differ more. By showing Jews not only in Belgium but also in Israel and the USA, she also underlines that all of them find their very own way of interpreting their religion and of uniting an old faith based on ancient rules with the modern world.