Happy New Years - by Maya Arad (Paperback)

About the Book

"After emigrating to the United States in the mid-1960s, Leah maintains her connection to Israel by writing an annual letter on the Jewish new year to her old friends from a women's teaching college. Comprising five decades of correspondence, the novel skillfully weaves together Leah's high hopes and deep disappointments as she navigates relationships, marriage, divorce, single motherhood, financial struggles, and professional ups and downs. Leah's relentless optimism and cheerfulness conceal disturbing truths behind her carefully crafted words. As her letters turn increasingly introspective, the secrets and shame that shaped her trajectory unravel."--

Book Synopsis

"Maya Arad is the smart, tart, and heartbroken sibyl of exile, who is remaking expectations of Hebrew literature book by book."--Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus

After emigrating to the United States in the mid-1960s, Leah maintains her connection to Israel by writing an annual letter on the Jewish new year to her old friends from a women's teaching college. Comprising five decades of correspondence, the novel skillfully weaves together Leah's high hopes and deep disappointments as she navigates relationships, marriage, divorce, single motherhood, financial struggles, and professional ups and downs. Leah's relentless optimism and cheerfulness conceal disturbing truths behind her carefully crafted words. As her letters turn increasingly introspective, the secrets and shame that shaped her trajectory unravel. This is the epistolary novel at its best, inviting the reader to play detective and probe between the lines of Leah's insistently rosy portrayal of her life. Gradually piecing together her true circumstances, we are charmed into forgiving her minor deceptions and richly rewarded with the profound insights that Leah's self-constructed narrative reveals.

Reading group guide to Happy New Years is available for download free of charge at newvesselpress.com.

Review Quotes

"Themes the author explored to great effect in The Hebrew Teacher are at play here . . . Unexpected--and satisfying . . . A life replete with grit, optimism, and mystery is created through the simple artifice of New Year's letters."--Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

"This subtle epistolary novel from Arad comprises 50 years' worth of letters sent by a woman to her former classmates at an Israeli teacher's college on Rosh Hashana . . . cleverly ironic . . . This will move readers."--Publishers Weekly

"A magical feat of storytelling that brilliantly lays bare a woman's dreams, disappointments, blind spots, aspirations, and omissions. This is a captivating and deeply moving novel about the stories we tell each other and the stories we tell ourselves."--Tova Mirvis, author of The Book of Separation and We Would Never

"Maya Arad's protagonist in Happy New Years is a humdinger . . . shining a spotlight not only on migration but also on aging, capitalism, militarism, generational differences, and particularly feminism . . . I was captivated by Arad's cleverness . . . Arad transcends one country. She can't be pigeonholed as an Israeli writer."--World Literature Today

"Moving . . . charts the triumphs and challenges of an Israeli woman living in the U.S. through five decades of annual Rosh Hashanah letters to her college friends back home . . . Wise, absorbing, and relatable in their small details and messy emotions, Leah's letters create a richly layered portrait of a woman determined to build a satisfying life for herself."--Shelf Awareness

"Reading Happy New Years gave me the same rush I felt when I first tore through Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels: the female voices feel real and familiar . . . nothing short of extraordinary."--The Canadian Jewish News

"An ingeniously crafted narrative, Happy New Years is a genuine tour de force; thrumming with haunting immediacy . . . endlessly inventive . . . a triumph of the epistolary form and a profoundly incisive rendering of gender politics past and present."--Jewish Book Council

"Brilliant and moving . . . The great miracle of this novel is the way that slowly, naturally, over decades, it leads to the emergence of an older woman who can reflect with wisdom on her life and its failures and successes . . . Easily one of the best works of Jewish American fiction produced this century." --The Jewish Review of Books

"A sly and complex portrait of a character beautifully rendered by author Maya Arad . . . She has created an underdog whom one can't help rooting for."--Hadassah Magazine

"Maya Arad is the smart, tart, and heartbroken sibyl of exile, who is remaking expectations of Hebrew literature book by book."--Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus

"Compelling . . . A poignant novel, Happy New Years is about a woman who, despite her flaws, attempts to stake her place in the world."--Foreword Reviews

"Provides the combination we've come to expect from Arad--of pleasure and sophistication--and confirms her central and unique status in the literary arena."--Haaretz

"A touching book about immigration, growing old, dreaming big, and the attempt to remain optimistic even with the nagging sense of having missed out on life."--Walla

About the Author

Maya Arad is the author of twelve books of Hebrew fiction, as well as studies in literary criticism and linguistics. Born in Israel in 1971, she received a PhD in linguistics from University College London and for the past twenty years has lived in California where she is currently writer in residence at Stanford University's Taube Center for Jewish Studies. She won a National Jewish Book Award for The Hebrew Teacher.

Jessica Cohen shared the 2017 Man Booker International Prize with author David Grossman for her translation of A Horse Walks into a Bar. She has translated works by Amos Oz, Etgar Keret, Dorit Rabinyan, Ronit Matalon, Nir Baram, and others.