The Sisters Weiss: A Novel

Rose and Pearl Weiss, treasured sisters in an ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn family, grow up in the 1950s with strict rules and high expectations: behave piously, obey their parents and teachers, and prepare themselves for marriage to a prestigious Torah scholar. Rose, however, treads in dangerous waters when she begins questioning the strictures that make up her life – and pursues her love of photography. Her friendship with a French immigrant leads to a disastrous confrontation with her family, and Rose – trapped in a spiral of regret and anger, certainty and doubt – ultimately is cast from her home and cut off from all she knows.

Decades later, Rose – now a world-famous photographer – is unexpectedly drawn back into the ultra-Orthodox community she left behind when her niece, Rivka, flees her own strict family and seeks out her adventurous aunt. Whereas Rose was once brave and confident, Rivka is reckless and naïve, and her choices set Rose as well as long-estranged Pearl onto a path neither of them ever expected. Written with compassion and a detailed insider’s view of the ultra-Orthodox world, The Sisters Weiss suggests that leaving home forever – even for the best of reasons – is, in the end, both impossible and undesirable.