Shmutz : a novel / Felicia Berliner.

Also published: Crows Nest : Allen & Unwin, 2022.

"An arranged marriage is expected for Raizl, but she's not like the other young women in her Hasidic sect in Brooklyn. Raizl has a college scholarship to study accounting, a part-time job that supports her family, and a hidden computer making it all possible. That's where she finds the porn, through the slippery slope of an innocent Google search. As Raizl dives deeper into the world of porn at night, her daytime life begins to unravel. The porn is thrilling, cracking open a world of desire and experience that is becoming irresistible to Raizl-but it also threatens to tear her away from the family she loves. As the novel moves between Raizl's combative visits to the shrink she requested, arranged dates, and loving but complicated exchanges with her family, readers will be drawn to confront their own paradoxical sexuality and the trade-offs we all make for the sake of stability and familial love. A singular, compulsively readable debut, Shmutz explores what it means to be a fully-realized sexual and spiritual being amidst the contradictory messages of both the traditional and modern world"--