Reviewed by Jaye

When I first bought the Mary Martin Bookshop five years ago, I thought I had died and gone to book heaven. The cupboards were filled to the brim with advance reading copies, books were spilling from the shelves and I spent many happy weeks bathing in the luxury of choice. Enticing, intriguing titles everywhere I looked.

Some six months later, I felt overwhelmed—so many books, so little time. Very quickly I learnt that to keep on top of it I had to pick titles and authors that sang out to me. Pity the untested debut author! My strategy is to give that book half a day of my life and if it hadn’t captured my insides within three hours, I would let it go. Because there is always another book waiting in the wings that will.

Abomination, the debut novel by Melbourne author Ashley Goldberg, had me within the first hour of picking it up. There is something indescribable in its first chapters, something vulnerable, yet edgily curious and unfamiliar that makes you want to keep turning the pages. You learn about Ezra and his over-thinking self, about his current relationship with Tegan and his past friendship with Yonatan. There’s a past scandal, an event that happened years ago at Ezra’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yahel school, which is now colliding with a protest taking place on the steps of Parliament. You feel Ezra’s confusion while wanting to learn more about Yonatan. Three hours into reading, these characters were completely real to me and there was no way I was letting them go.

Those of you who have read or watched Deborah Fieldman’s Unorthodox will recognise the parallel universes of the secular and ultra-Orthodox communities. In Abomination, Goldberg tenderly takes us by the hand and walks us through both worlds in contemporary Melbourne. The book never feels intrusive or judgmental, nor secretive or sacrilegious. Instead I felt an increasing understanding and empathy and deep respect. Fundamentally, Goldberg seems to be saying, we remain who we are, regardless of societal limitations and strictures. We love the same way, we hurt the same way and we fear the same way.

Abomination uses Yiddish liberally with no footnotes nor explanations. It reminded me of Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip in that way. Both assume that writer and reader are on the same standing. That here you, the privileged reader, are a guest and no condescending patronage is required. I like that; it made me feel included and welcomed. It’s a gifted writer who understands that their audience is as real and thinking as they are.

It is a wonderment to me that this is Goldberg’s debut novel as this is as accomplished a book as I have read in awhile. It’s different, it’s gentle yet filled with pathos. I love it. More, I love that it is local, written and based in Melbourne, and yet reveals a world previously unknown to me.

RRP $32.99