Thank you to NetGalley/Grove Press for a copy of City of Laughter in exchange for an honest review.
Summary
Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th-century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger — bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century.
In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family’s mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother Mira, about whom no one speaks. What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future but also her present.
RELATED: Celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien Day With These 5 Underrated Classics
An Epic Tale
Temim Fruchter’s debut is epic in every sense of the word. City of Laughter is a book that simultaneously weaves, sweeps and meanders through time. City of Laughter is very Jewish. Not just in its content but also in its narrative style. Be prepared for many asides and switches from third person to first person.
I’ll admit I was sometimes reticent to follow the novel’s seemingly random tangents. But, like all good Jewish tales, the payoff is worth it. (That said, you don’t need to be an expert in Judaism or Jewish folklore to follow along. I am a neophyte in this arena — in more ways than one — and I could follow along just fine.)
What City of Laughter does best is facing family history head-on. I, too, come from a culture that doesn’t particularly enjoy divulging family truths, so I resonated hard with Fruchter’s words here. (Luckily, my shaking apart of the foundation has not unearthed any skeletons quite as large.)
RELATED: GGA’s 11 Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of 2024
The juxtaposition of queerness, its joy, sorrow and liberation, when it meets tradition, is always a rich topic. Fruchter plays with that tension well. There are through-lines but also differences in how each queer woman, throughout time, deals with her queerness. (I also appreciate that after so many years of the community avoiding the topic, we are acknowledging that it can “run in the family.”)
Should You Read It?
Yes. But you need to be prepared. City of Laughter isn’t a beach book; it isn’t fluff. You have to be paying attention while you read. Or else you’ll find yourself lost or worse, not appreciating its gifts. Temim Fruchter has done something extraordinary with her debut, and I’m quite impressed. I think the patient reader will be, too.
City of Laughter is out on January 16, 2024. Pick up a copy at your local indie bookstore or library. 📚👩👧
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/new-book-releases-january-9-2024/
- Millennial Misremembers: CAPTAIN PLANET AND THE PLANETEERS - January 18, 2025
- The Origin of Tropes: The Antihero - January 14, 2025
- 12 Words and Phrases Coined in Books, TV and Film - January 1, 2025
