Either you go to the islands of piety in Golders Green or in some more posh and top-notch circles in the North, Jewish life in London has an unique feature of continuity, community and stability that you rarely feel in other parts of Europe. The characters from the admirable debut novel by Francesca Segal, The Innocents, are real and realistic for their natural belonging to the same school clubs and gatherings from a very early age. Their friends stay with them and they eventually end up marrying up their teen-year sweetheart which involves also a stable economic future in the business of one of the parents'. She used as inspiration The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton translated into a Jewish context. Ironically Wharton harbored anti-Semitic feelings, visible for instance in The House of Mirth.
Adam and Rachel are the perfect couple. They meet during a trip to Israel as teenagers and except a limited period of time, they always were a couple. They are preparing to get married and both families are enthusted. Rachel is too, but Adam hopes that once married, they will dare exploring the world, both physically and through the knowledge beyond the limits of things and reality. But in the everyday life of Hampstead Garden Suburb things are happening less randomly. The third generation after Shoah are used with an upbringing of plenty and transgressors are rejected. Like Rachel's cousin, Ellie, free of inhibitions, in the middle of a huge scandal which involved a married rich man and freshly expelled from Columbia after appearing in a porn film. Since he met her, Adam is out of his mind and becoming obsessed with her, which is not nice at all, but as realistic as possible. It is the appeal of adventure and unusual which calls him, although not necessarily what he might want to have for the rest of his life. It is a dream, a projection, an obsession. What a contrast with his wife, Rachel: 'Her world was one in which her own highest aspirations had always been those wanted for her by a community and the concept of innovation at a cost of isolation (or even mild disapproval) wasn't worth it. There was security in their social dictates'.
Will Adam in his nivety give up stability for innovation? Will be betray expections for passion? Will curiosity win over certitude?
For a debut roman, The Innocents is well-built - although there are relationships between characters left unexplored and not all the characters are equally developed. My first encounter with Francesca Segal was through her second novel The Awkward Age which convinced me only partially. I wish her next novel is at least as captivating as her first.
Rating: 4 stars
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