Shoshana Mael, Dancing in the Dark, Menucha Publishers, Inc., 2013, ISBN 978-1-61465-094-2, 276 pages, cover price unlisted.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO–Rikki and her older sister Daniella, who were both quite popular with their classmates at an Orthodox Jewish girls high school, showed up one day badly bruised. Rikki’s neck had been clawed with fingernails, and Daniella had a black eye. School authorities became immediately concerned. Had the two sisters been fighting? Or, worse, were these teens being abused by adults? And if they were, by whom?
The answers in this novel for young adults were not what someone might expect. The girls’ wounds were the result of another of Rikki’s nightmares. Screaming in her sleep, she had clawed at her own neck as if to pull away the fingers of an attacker bent on choking her to death. And when her sister tried to awaken her from her nightmare, Rikki instinctively punched at the presence near her, in the process giving Daniella a black eye.
The injuries were blessings in disguise. They prompted school authorities to probe beneath the sisters’ carefully constructed facades and learn the secrets that were emotionally crippling them. The girls’ mother, a bipolar schizophrenic, had been abusing them and their little brother for years when their father was away at work. It was something they never told their father about, thinking he would not believe them. Nor did they tell any of their friends because they were ashamed to admit that there was mental illness in their family. Resenting their father for not discovering on his own what was happening, and mistrustful of any other authority figures, the sisters had made a pact to keep what was happening in their home all locked up behind their pleasant smiles. Trying to keep a lid on their emotions was exactly the wrong thing to do.
The sisters thought that they could cope on their own with their mother’s sudden rages and mood swings. Instead of rivaling as other siblings do, they drew closer together, looking to each other for the emotional support that neither, no matter how much she wanted to, knew how to give. They also tried to give their 11-year-old brother the mothering he needed. It would have been impossible for them to keep everything all bottled up. It can be difficult enough going through adolescence, but under such added pressure, the sisters’ lives–and composure–eventually had to unravel.
We join the novel at a point when Rikki has been put in charge of a dance performance just after their mother has been checked into a mental hospital. At first Rikki seems to have it all together–especially amid the awed admiration of the younger girls in the school — but with their father spending all his time either at work, or visiting their mother at the hospital, she and Danielle now were faced with being caregivers not only for themselves but also for their brother.
Sleep deprived and emotionally at sea, things seemed to get even worse for the two sisters. How far their downward spirals might have taken them is a matter for speculation. Had the school psychologist not intervened, the disasters of the sisters’ lives might have become irreparable.
Shoshana Mael’s first novel is emotionally quite gripping as she explores actions and consequences–both bad and good–not only in the home but in the school. Mael is a Baltimore-based social worker who counsels troubled youth. It is clear in this compassionate novel that she knows her subject very well. The story is quite powerful, and is recommended reading not only for teenagers, but for their parents as well.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com