After emigrating to the United States in the mid-1960s, Leah maintains her connection to Israel by writing an annual letter on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, to her old friends. Comprising five decades of correspondence, the novel skillfully weaves together Leah's high hopes and deep disappointments as she navigates friendship, marriage, motherhood, divorce, financial struggles and professional ups and downs—and lays bare the deceptions of a self-constructed narrative.
Maya Arad is widely regarded as the foremost Hebrew writer working outside of Israel, and Happy New Years—her second book to be translated into English—allows readers a chance to see why this is so. Happy New Years is the kind of story that sneaks up on you: an Israeli woman’s annual letter to friends back home takes on increasing power and complexity with each passing year. Arad both creates an intimate portrait of a woman’s life over five decades, and offers a fascinating window into the Israeli expatriate community, exploring themes of emigration, dislocation and what it means to feel at home. This is a novel that speaks across generations and cultures and invites readers to consider the power of the stories we tell—to each other and to ourselves.
