THE SHIKSA SYNDROME
Laurie Graff
Broadway Books
Fiction
ISBN: 9780767927611
A good Jewish husband is hard to find --- but only if you're a single Jewish woman. If you're a Shiksa, a non-Jewish lady, preferably a blonde Barbie-doll type, then Jewish husbands are pretty easy to come by. It's a fact of life that Aimee Albert has grown used to it, but that doesn't mean she has to like it. Even her best friend, Krista, has managed to snare a Jewish man of her own. And, oh yeah, Krista isn't even Jewish!
Aimee is excited to meet handsome Josh Hirsch, who is just what she’s looking for. He’s young, good-looking, heir to his family's bread empire and, best of all, Jewish. Unfortunately, he is not interested in Jewish girls or the JAP, Jewish American Princess, as he labels them. According to him, Jewish women are high-maintenance, bossy and just way too much trouble. He wants a Shiksa of his own.
Fortunately for Aimee and unfortunately for Josh, due to her recent change in hairstyle and a pair of colored contact lenses, he mistakes her for a Shiksa. When she realizes what has happened, she decides to play along and worry about the consequences later. Oh, what consequences they are!
Aimee's little deception begins innocently enough, but as she and Josh grow closer, a little white lie takes on a life of its own and then grows to epic proportions. The worst thing is, Aimee loves being Jewish. It's the only reason she stooped to lying in the first place. Now she has to hide the very thing she is eager to embrace.
While Josh looks good on paper, the reality isn't necessarily all that Aimee hoped for. He isn't nearly as connected to his heritage as she is. In fact, it seems like something he'd rather forget most of the time. She finds herself creating one lie after another to maintain her identity as a Protestant Shiksa from Scranton, Pennsylvania, rather than a Jewish girl from New York City.
She even involves an unwilling Krista, denies her true relationship with her sister, packs away anything in her apartment that would identify her as Jewish, and shops for white bread, bakes casseroles and stops eating bagels, all in order to maintain her facade as the Shiksa Josh desires.
As her family and friends begin to learn of her deception, they become increasingly put out with her, to the point of staging a Shiksa intervention to try and regain the Aimee they all know and love instead of this stranger who has taken her place. They needn't have bothered, though, because, truth be told, Aimee's own conscience is getting to her. She's irritated that Josh, who doesn't even value Judaism, is able to be openly Jewish, while she, the one it matters to most, is in a position of hiding the truth even if it is her own fault.
In the end, the truth comes out in a hilarious way, and Aimee is forced to face up to her own feelings about being Jewish and what she is really looking for in a relationship.
THE SHIKSA SYNDROME is a funny and entertaining read. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down and actually finished it on the same day. Now I'm eager to get my hands on Laurie Graff's other novels, YOU HAVE TO KISS A LOT OF FROGS and LOOKING FOR MR. GOODFROG. If they're half as good as THE SHIKSA SYNDROME, I have some great reading ahead.
--- Reviewed by Amie Taylor
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