The Girl from Lake Michigan

This is the tale of a religious woman`s long journey from psychological dependence to spiritual emancipation, as she discovers her identity and gains confidence in her own powers. Haya-Tova, known as Minnie, grew up in the patriarchal Jewish world that engenders in a woman dependency on a man, first her father, then her husband. She is the daughter of a rabbi in Chicago, but unlike her girlfriends who suppress their desires, hers run free. At 16 she falls in love with Hillel, her father`s faithful student, many years her senior – “the wrong man” as defined by her stepmother. A forbidden relationship evolves, but Minnie never wins Hillel. Her father packs her off to Jerusalem, where she later hears that Hillel has married a rich and attractive widow with a son from a previous marriage. Minnie is far from her family, living in a community of ultra-Orthodox, North American immigrants. She studies, she works and she devotes herself to community service. She is even wooed by an aging bachelor called Stein, whose sister Susie, a victim of unrequited love, has sunk into depression and insanity. Minnie identifies with Susie, not only because she, too, has been abandoned by a man, but because she cannot free herself of her own love for Hillel. She continues to love him from a distance, for many years. When he visits Jerusalem with his wife, her old love blooms again. But Hillel dies of a heart attack, and once more Minnie falls in love with the wrong man, Hillel`s stepson Johnny, a Bohemian, a dancer and an AIDS patient.

For twenty years Minnie longs for unattainable men, one after the other. The book`s strength lies in the psychological possibilities it fosters, the relationships between the characters, and the protagonist`s ultimate release from her psychological trap.