There’s never a quiet moment inside the Cohen kitchen, in Brooklyn’s Jewish/Syrian community. Something’s either cooking, simmering, percolating or boiling over. Moreover there’s bubbling, sizzling, stewing and steaming between the three Cohen sisters ---Fortune, Nina and Lucy--- as each considers their options before that decisive walk toward the chuppah. Guaranteed to keep you in paroxysms of laughter Sisters of Fortune, a new novel by Esther Chehebar begins with (what else?) Leviticus 15:19 the laws of Niddah --- sexual purity--“that keeps the blech burning “in marriage.
Prose that leaps off the pages with whimsical, satirical, comedic dialogue Sisters of Fortune follows the Cohen girls on three divergent paths to happiness as they straddle community expectations, personal desires and family obligations. Engaged to Saul Dweck, Fortune Cohen knows her shiduch’s heaven-sent. She’s learned the traditional Sephardic community rules and she plays by them. Saul is a safe choice. The families are on similar rungs on the social ladder and hold “the same level of family observance.” “Her marriage will undoubtedly please both sides of the “mishpacha” and especially Fortune’s grandmother, Sitto, whose motto ---- “two things should never be empty, the womb and the freezer” ---is as sacrosanct as Sitto’s middle eastern yerba recipe.
Ever compliant, on her way to Kallah classes, at 21, Fortune can’t understand why her rebellious sister, Nina, single at 26, bucks convention in a “what-will-people-think,” community. Nor the reason Nina has chosen a job at a record company where not everyone is Jewish and Steven, Nina’s boyfriend, isn’t even slightly observant.
It’s two months before Fortune’s wedding and the “swamee” is being arranged to meet the in-laws on both sides to celebrate. Marie, Fortune’s “MIL” ( mother in law) spares no expense to shower her with the most luxurious gifts, a Chanel quilted bag, Louis Vuitton luggage, two Christofle silver cake stands and of course a cook book “to make a home” for her darling son, Saul. Fortune’s destiny is mapped out for her until two days before her wedding when she takes a refreshing dip in the mikvah, an event that blows up her life.
In a community where, “reputation is everything”, Fortune’s sister, Lucy, has already set the gossip-mongers on fire. A yeshiva senior, at 18 Lucy brings David, 34 a “man not a boy” to her graduation prom. Will the family ship her off to Israel to a seminary to get her back on “derech” (road to propriety )? Or will the Cohens transcend the community expectations that have governed their lives, “since dinosaurs roamed the earth?”
Never dull, Sisters of Fortune, is a spicy smorgasbord of giggles and a checklist for anyone with one eye on the chuppah and the other on keeping the family and close-knit community united.