Shmutz in the New York Times

Full New York Times review of Shmutz:

‘Porn of the Self’: Novels of Female Angst

by Alex Beggs

Eighteen-year-old Raizl hiding her laptop beneath her covers while she basks in the glow of endless, muted porn is a picture burned into my memory as permanently as the shvantzes and shmundies are in the protagonist’s imagination (look them up). Felicia Berliner’s SHMUTZ (260 pp., Atria, $27) is about a young woman with a porn addiction that’s somehow even more forbidden than most.

Because she’s strictly Hasidic, Raizl shouldn’t even be allowed to have a laptop, but an exception has been made so she can attend college and make money to support her family. Berliner’s very literal and Yiddish-inflected synopses of porn as perceived by Raizl are hilarious and endearing: “So this is what a woman does! Shaves her shmundie, takes a man in her mouth, eats without saying a blessing first.”

Raizl dissects her porn problem in weekly sessions with a therapist (“so this is therapy,” she thinks, “a porn of the self”), scenes with such a wacky dynamic they sort of reminded me of the unpredictable volleys between Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi. Raizl knows both too much and not nearly enough about sex as she starts meeting potential husbands through her parents’ matchmaker. On these dates, Raizl fizzles like the seltzer in front of her, barely able to tamper her desire. The more she suppresses her lust, the more she realizes she can’t live without it. Maybe some readers can relate.

“Shmutz” is a dirty book with a pure heart, though the story was wrapped up before I was ready to leave Raizl’s wonderfully horny head. Let her laptop burn forever into the night.