Gitty rarely speaks, and when she does, the lines she’s given are so all over the place, it creates a dismembered character. If we can’t feel her presence, we can’t imagine that there is more to this than one man’s feelings. Since Deen’s relationship with his five children deteriorates over the last part of the book, he writes to avoid being judged harshly by readers.ĭeen’s wife Gitty is never humanized. He is aware that society can idolize the stories of the coming of age, leaving insular communities genre, but that the adoration turns sour when children are left behind. Adichie sees through the memoirist whose slick honesty is there to disarm, whose self-criticism is calculated to deflect.ĭeen also composes his story as an act of image-making. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian author of “Americana”, once described one memoir as “a well-written act of image-making”. Deen isn’t an author of great insights but he is able to frame a sentence so that reading it is a pleasure, and small details effortlessly bring the scene to life.īut the book isn’t what it could have been, because, in addition to being a memoir about leaving Hasidism, it is also a dance around Deen’s demons.

There are several such isolated scenes that capture Hasidic life, and they speak to his potential. Deen isn’t hiding any ghosts there – as far as I know – so he is able to portray an engagement that is original, humorous, human. When I reread Deen’s book, All Who Go Do Not Return, I can still see the bright spots especially in the scene describing his engagement. Now, after some time during which I heard many people base their knowledge of the Hasidic community on this book, I thought it’s time for a second, more critical look.

I read this book at about the time of its initial release but didn’t analyze it too closely. As someone who has left the Hasidic community and continues to be fascinated by how much nuance this insular community hides, I’m especially interested in literature that comes from insiders – and often, of course, they will have the bias of those who left.

All who go do not return by shulem deen