** Winner of the 2020 Jewish Fiction Award ** “A novel of wisdom and uncertainty, of love in its greater and lesser forms, and of the struggle between how it should be and how it is. It is impossible not to be moved.” ―Amy Bloom , author of White Houses "This book brings the reader into the heart of a close-knit Jewish family and their joys, loves, and sorrows . . . A marvelous book by a masterful writer.” ―Audrey Niffenegger , author of Her Fearful Symmetry and The Time Traveler’s Wife Through one woman's life at a moment of surprising change, the award-winning author Goldie Goldbloom tells a deeply affecting, morally insightful story and offers a rare look inside Brooklyn's Chasidic community On Division Avenue, just a block or two up from the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her ten children range in age from thirteen to thirty-nine. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and Yidel, a scribe in such demand that he makes only a few Torah scrolls a year, live on the third. Wed when Surie was sixteen, they have a happy marriage and a full life, and, at the ages of fifty-seven and sixty-two, they are looking forward to some quiet time together. Into this life of counted blessings comes a surprise. Surie is pregnant. Pregnant at fifty-seven. It is a shock. And at her age, at this stage, it is an aberration, a shift in the proper order of things, and a public display of private life. She feels exposed, ashamed. She is unable to share the news, even with her husband. And so for the first time in her life, she has a secret―a secret that slowly separates her from the community. Goldie Goldbloom's On Division is an excavation of one woman's life, a story of awakening at middle age, and a thoughtful examination of the dynamics of self and collective identity. It is a steady-eyed look inside insular communities that also celebrates their comforts. It is a rare portrait of a long, happy marriage. And it is an unforgettable new novel from a writer whose imagination is matched only by the depth of her humanity. ** Winner of the 2020 Jewish Fiction Award ** Chosen for the One Bay One Book Program at the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco "A quietly, finely wrought story about how to move beyond restrictions even while living within them . . . Wonderfully entrancing, a book about difference that feels universal." ―Bethanne Patrick, Lit Hub "[An] elegant novel about a Hasidic woman cocooned by her close-knit faith community, yet increasingly alienated from it . . . [Goldie Goldbloom's] portrait of Surie and the Chassids of Williamsburg glows with sympathy and authenticity . . . Goldbloom knows the Yiddishisms, the customs, the constraints ― and the longings that chafe against them." ―Julia M. Klein, Forward "Richly imagined . . . Goldbloom captures the full scale of human emotion in this family in a contemporary ultra-Orthodox community as Surie contends with this news, and somehow taps into the particular demands of Chassidic life, as well as the universality of shifting generational boundaries." ― The National Book Review "Unique . . . The story revolves around Surie Eckstein, a 57-year-old matriarch who suddenly doubts some of the restrictive mores of her Hasidic shtetl in Brooklyn; yet it conveys an abiding affection for this anachronistic world . . . This novel is really about the struggle to bridge differences." ― The Economist " The author, a member of the Chasidic community, writes with accuracy, authenticity, and respect―celebrating the positive aspects of the community with beauty, warmth, and love while also exposing negative, harmful, and shameful practices. The result is a multi-layered story of how secrets can shake even the most secure and close-knit families that is accessible to readers both familiar and unfamiliar with the insular world of ultra-Orthodox Jews." ―Rachel Kamin, Association of Jewish Libraries "Author Goldie Goldbloom, a Hasidic mother of eight, is not the first to expose the inner world of ultra-Orthodox Jews, but she does so with a rare sensitivity to nuance and a resistance to stereotype . . . Surie Eckstein surprises herself, but she also confounds our expectations of a character like her. The fact that she remains, throughout, a sympathetic and convincing heroine is a testament to Goldbloom’s masterful skill as a storyteller." ― Lilith Magazine "Quietly exceptional . . . Goldbloom is careful to remind readers that liberation doesn't necessarily mean rule breaking, just as obedience doesn't necessarily mean holiness." ―Lily Meyer, The Chicago Reader "A won­der­ful­ly com­plex exam­ple of what it means to be an Ortho­dox Jew in mod­ern times . . . Through art­ful sto­ry­telling, the read­er is able to feel every bit of the anx­ious suf­fer­ing Surie endures with­in the tight-knit an