Abomination (Ashley Goldberg, Vintage) 

Best friends Ezra and Yonatan are students at an ultra-Orthodox Melbourne Jewish school when a teacher is accused of sexual molestation and is quickly squirreled away to Israel, beyond the law’s reach. Ezra’s parents pull him from Yahel Academy and place him in a public high school and the two friends do not see each other again for 20 years, when the abuser is finally extradited to Australia. Their lives have taken vastly different paths: Ezra is an atheist with a non-Jewish girlfriend while Yonatan, now a married, ultra-observant rabbi, is a teacher at their alma mater. Ezra and Yonatan’s reunion evokes memories of their school days, and both men’s lives slowly begin to derail as they grapple with questions of faith, community trust and self-realisation. While Yonatan begins to question the strictures of his orthodoxy, Ezra re-examines his long-ignored childhood religious practice. Clearly inspired by the high-profile cases of abuse survivors Manny Waks and the Sapper sisters, who were sexually abused by staff at two separate Melbourne Jewish schools, Abomination brilliantly examines sexual abuse, the conflict between secular and religious worlds, and the private battles of faith plaguing so many raised in the latter. The wider issues of bullying, isolation and the lifelong effects of childhood trauma are also thoughtfully probed. Admirers of Chaim Potok’s The Chosen and Lisa Emanuel’s more recent The Covered Wife will welcome this deftly plotted and thoughtfully realised novel of friendship, trauma, faith and identity. Abomination will certainly secure debut novelist Goldberg’s place on the Australian literary scene.  

Scott Whitmont is the business development & relationship manager for Booktopia Publisher Services, having previously owned and operated Sydney’s Lindfield Bookshop for over 20 years. 

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews