New Fiction (Winner)
Title: Back to Jerusalem
Author: Jan Surasky
Publisher: Sandalwood Press
ISBN: 978-0-578-08726-9
Pages: 331, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by: Anita Lock, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
Jenny Thompson, the compliant daughter of “a successful Methodist farmer and owner of a tire store” in the small town of Jerusalem, New York, had hopes of becoming a famous artist someday. Her neighbor and best friend, Jake, the son of a poor Mennonite family, had a big dream, too, of becoming a lawyer. Because their future plans would take them to different locations, Jenny and Jake knew that their time together would draw to a close, especially since Jenny’s overbearing and officious mother was certain that Methodists and Mennonites made a pitiable mix. Her mother, too, had dreams. A projected hope, she desired that her daughter would marry someone who could offer her a better social status than a farmer’s wife. As luck would have it, her mother’s wishes came true when Bud Anderson, the egotistical son of the wealthiest family in town, asked Jenny’s hand in marriage. Giving up her dreams in support of her new husband’s business, Jenny thought life would change for the better when their son was born. But when their marriage went on the rocks, Jenny had no idea that her new life as a single mom would not only leave her longing for the small town that she loved, but also her best friend.Written in a third person objective view, Surasky compensates for reading character’s thoughts with her own masterpiece of idyllic scenes, succulent plants, brilliant seasonal hues, and the beautifully earthy patterns that grace Jenny’s home town. Back to Jerusalem tells the story of a girl who is an unwitting victim during a time when women understood their roles in a man’s world and then breaks free to develop her own identity. Set initially in the 1970s, Surasky slowly but deliberately weaves twenty years of Jenny’s life into a colorful tapestry, made up of the various strands of joy and struggle through the people and events that she encounters as she moves on following her divorce.
Though much of this novel is laced with Jerusalem’s pastoral vistas that manage to gnaw at Jenny’s unsettled thoughts, Surasky is equally skilled in developing characters, particularly the antagonists of the story that would provoke a reader to shout out expletives toward the domineering matriarchs, namely Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Anderson. Mrs. Thompson’s persistent nagging toward Jenny and the belittling remarks she makes toward her husband, coupled with Mrs. Anderson’s flippant remarks toward Jenny are enough to make a person’s blood boil. Fortunately, there is a plethora of positive characters, many of whom become Jenny’s close friends. Yet with all the beauty of friends and family that surround her, the one that she keeps missing in her life is Jake.
An absolutely beautiful novel, Back to Jerusalem is a reminder to all of us that whatever you do, wherever you go, “home is forever embedded in your spirit, and your soul.”
