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Reviewed by Scarlett Jensen for Readers' Favorite
In her memoir-in-miniature, Places We Left Behind, Jennifer Lang offers readers a compelling tale of unexpected commitment alongside unconventional exploration. The vignettes reflect her recollection of events and her culture shock around Judaism. Since she left college in Chicago and her junior year abroad in France over a decade earlier, nothing had felt firm. All she wanted was to understand how, after growing up in the same house and country, she ended up so rootless on shaky ground. Where-to-live and how-much-Judaism-to-live-by, became a struggle. The up-and-go part of her life as an immigrant against her husband Philippe’s traditional upbringing with a kosher kitchen and synagogue on Shabbat, began to surface. Philippe ignored matters about distance, religion, and politics that influenced their marital dynamics and safety. This is a wonderful compilation of emotional reactions when weighing the disadvantages she suffered. Weeping turned to sobbing as guilt engulfed her after seven years of living abroad in Israel.
In Places We Left Behind, we see how Jennifer Lang pushes boundaries and plays with form and self-talk in her memoir. She uses strikethrough in her formatting to reflect her emotional truth. The defining moment arrived when Jennifer let go of all that she was holding onto, all the obstacles in her way, and knew she would stay in the marriage, keep the family together, and move again. For me as a reader, the vignettes were a means to express her sadness, desperation, and pain which helped her to see the cracks in her life and rebuild their foundation for a unifying permanence in Israel. This work is highly recommended to readers who appreciate the reality of resolving the tug-of-war conflict in a marriage amidst political turmoil to safeguard life, culture, and religion.
