Bagels & Books: Acts of Assumption

Description

About the Book: Acts of Assumption is the story of two young women who are outsiders within their own outsider tribes. Serach Gottesman, the independent minded eldest daughter of a Boro Park Haredi family is unsupported — and eventually disowned — by that family, for craving both a rigorous secular and a gender blind religious education, for not wanting children, and for being a lesbian. Paloma Rodriguez, the head strong, ambitious Bronx-born daughter of a Colombian immigrant is dismissed in New York for being Latina and in Colombia for being a “gringa” and by members of both societies for being a lesbian. The two women meet under curious circumstances and form their own little tribe. They provide each other with love, ballast and a peculiarly combined sense of faith. But they both also struggle with what they’ve had to give up to be true to their own hearts. They learn that some cultural bonds grip tight and some wounds run deep — and that living in a modern society means continually examining, questioning and trying to come to peace with one’s basic assumptions.