Cammy Sitting Shiva - by Cary Gitter

Book Synopsis

This stirring debut novel is an unflinching, darkly funny look at loss, family, and coming home--perfect for fans of This Is Where I Leave You and Competitive Grieving.

When Cy Adler dies, it's a shock to everyone, especially his daughter, Cammy. Almost thirty, slightly aimless, and stuck in a basement apartment in Queens, she's forced to return to River Hill, her one-square-mile New Jersey hometown, to sit shiva. Cammy's fraught relationship with her mother, Beth, has never been easy. And now, with her beloved father gone, she would rather be anywhere but back in her childhood room, in a house filled with guests noshing on snacks and offering their condolences. So Cammy does whatever she can to make it through seven turbulent days of mourning.

Amid getting stoned, reconnecting with her best friend and her high school crush, evading the rabbi, and spending a debauched night in Atlantic City, Cammy must reckon with her roots--with the place she fled for the glamour of New York, where she thought she belonged. But is she really any better off than those she left behind? While navigating the swirl of emotions that accompany grief, Cammy also uncovers hidden truths about her father, which lead her to doubt how well she knew the man she adored. Then again, does she even know herself?

Fueled by wry, lively prose, Cammy Sitting Shiva is a deeply relatable fish-out-of-water story, grappling with how it feels to be adrift and to find that a hard trip home may be what it takes to anchor you.

Review Quotes

Praise for Cammy Sitting Shiva
"Wry humor, millennial charm, and New Jersey flavor make the messiness of grief real and relatable in this rollicking debut."
--Beth Kander, USA Today bestselling author of I Made It Out of Clay

"Cammy Sitting Shiva is a joy. This is surprising because Cary Gitter's heart-wrenching novel has death at its center. But what could be more Jewish than coping with tragedy through laughter? In his nostalgic, ten-day fever dream, Gitter has written the definitive handbook on bereavement. And when no one was looking, he plumbed the depths of the loneliest place on the planet--the midst of a crowd."
--Rachel Robbins, author of The Sound of a Thousand Stars

"Cammy Sitting Shiva portrays that psychic space where longing, humor, rebellion, nostalgia, and hurt all meet after the greatest losses of our lives, undecided if they are our allies or adversaries. This novel is a guide to giving yourself grace when it's too hard to feel it all, a love letter to the colorful cast of characters in any Jersey hometown, and unequivocal permission to double down on your dreams, reinvent yourself, or both in the second coming-of-age era of your early thirties, when you are in fact just getting started."
--Katie Runde, author of The Shore

"Cary Gitter is a fantastic talent, his prose reminiscent of J. D. Salinger coupled with the wry wit of Sara Goodman Confino. His writing is nothing short of pure magic, and his cast of quirky, yet relatable characters will have readers laughing from the first page until the last. Gitter's path toward stardom is clearly set, and I eagerly await to read his next novel!"
--Heidi Shertok, author of Unorthodox Love

"An acerbic, yet tender, portrait of the complexities of grief, family, and New Jersey. Keenly drawn and sharply funny, Cammy Sitting Shiva is a joy to read."
--Amy Feltman, author of All the Things We Don't Talk About

"Loss is hard, but actually growing up is harder. A coming of age story full of complicated grief, all sorts of love, and a few hoagies, Cammy Sitting Shiva delights the reader as it buttresses our flawed heroine to sweet redemption. This debut novel is for anyone who reached adulthood, looked around and thought there just has to be more coming. It's an Olde English toast to The Garden State. Cheers to Cary Gitter for nailing the realities of nearing 30, a time when you realize how much more there still is to learn, do, and thankfully, enjoy."
--Elizabeth Topp, author of City People

About the Author

Cary Gitter is the author of the plays The Steel Man, Gene & Gilda, and The Sabbath Girl, among others, and the co-creator of the musicals The Sabbath Girl and How My Grandparents Fell in Love. His work has appeared off-Broadway and at theaters around the country, and he is the playwright-in-residence at Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York. He grew up in New Jersey and now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife, Meghan, and their two dogs, Roo and Puck. This is his first novel.