Please meet Robert N. Chan a new friend and fellow author. His book girl is out and doing well on Amazon.
girl
Blurb:
A trusted member of her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community rapes fifteen-year-old Hannah in the back room of a Brooklyn kosher butcher shop. Unwilling to succumb to her parents’ demand that she blame a homeless black man, she runs away. Alone on unfamiliar New York City streets and armed only with an indomitable spirit, quirky sense of humor, and unyielding intolerance for hypocrisy and injustice, she confronts adversity after adversity.
Blaming herself for having been raped and bent on avoiding emotional intimacy, she becomes involved with an enforcer for a Serbian mobster and embarks on a life of prostitution and hard drugs. Then comes unexpected motherhood and a son she treasures. When he is arrested on trumped up charges and almost killed in prison, her wide-ranging client base, including hoods and feds, comes in handy. But her plan backfires, her son is forever lost, and she is banished to an Appalachian backwater as a protected witness. Depressed and alone, she rediscovers her childhood dream of tikkun olam, repairing the world, and charts a path to justice and redemption. All she has to do now is emerge from witness protection, outwit vengeful hit men, and run for Congress in Tea Party country as a New York Jewish former whore. Too bad about that quirky sense of humor and unyielding intolerance for hypocrisy and injustice.
Bio:
Robert N. Chan, a founder of the New York City boutique law firm, Ferber Chan
Essner & Coller, LLP, has been litigating for forty years with appalling success. His eight prior novels—Apparitions, Axe of God, Science Fiction, Bad Memory, Painting A Burning House, Lying in Wait, and To Gain the Whole World—have been hailed as transformative underground classics of unparalleled brilliance…and people actually enjoyed them.
Excerpt of Chapter 1
I
Sleep
Tight, Ya Morons
“Are you too busy again to come with us, Hannah?” Deborah
asked as they left school.
“I’m afraid I have to
pass up the thrill of going three blocks out of my way to watch the boys
leaving the yeshiva,” Hannah said. “Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you and the
others peek through your fingers and giggle and gossip about your marriage
prospects.”
“Forgive me. I should’ve known the rebbetzin-in-training would have no time for fun.” Of course Hannah wanted to be a rebbetzin. What girl didn’t? As a rabbi’s wife, perhaps the wife of a famous
one, she’d have unlimited opportunities to perform tikkun olam, helping to repair the world, an
obligation she considered to be Judaism’s most sacred. Rav
Moscovitz would’ve been outraged had she told him her opinion, but she’d never
do that. She listened to Rav Moscowitz, didn’t speak to him.
Deborah tucked an errant
hair under her headscarf and pulled up her shapeless wool coat to cover her
neck. Lips moving, she swayed back and forth as if davening in prayer. Hannah didn’t mind her friends teasing her for
following God’s commandments. Having recently turned fifteen, soon to be
introduced to her future husband, she had every reason to hope for the best as
long as her sterling reputation remained untarnished.
It seemed to her that
everyone, not just her friends, made fun of her. Just this morning at
breakfast, she’d said, “God must love gentiles very much, He made so many of
them.” Her father called her my little
philosopher, and her mother sat with her elbow on her knee, fist under her
chin, mimicking a famous statue. When she played with them, Hannah’s younger
sisters, Rivka, Sarah, and Rebekah and her younger brother, Isaac, enjoyed laughing
at her silliness. Maybe in part because she herself came from such a small
family, Hannah thought five children would be the proper number for a rebbetzin who’d need time to help the
members of the community and maybe even engage with the outside world.
In spite of their
teasing, Hannah knew her parents loved her and liked it when she expressed her
own thoughts…as long as she didn’t go too far. While there were many unbendable
rules, the basic ones were clear and simple: to follow the Torah, put the needs
of the community before her own desires, and honor her father, mother, and Rav
Moscovitz. Leaving Deborah, Hannah
headed home through familiar streets. So far the winter of 1990 had been cold
and wet. Today was no exception. She pulled her headscarf tight against the
wind-driven drizzle and realized she’d been singing to herself: The morning stars sang together, and all the
sons of God shouted for joy, a Yiddish lullaby she’d sung yesterday to
Rivka as she tucked her in for her nap.
A man came from the other
direction. She sensed him look at her. Lately men seemed to be staring at her
all the time, probably her overactive imagination. She focused her gaze on the
sidewalk, but not before noticing that, although he wore a yarmulke, the man didn’t
have a full beard. Her father disliked the modern orthodox almost as much as he
disliked reformed and conservative Jews, whom he called minim, heretics. The way he would spit out the word communicated that he considered them
even worse than the Christian or atheist goyim. “We don’t dislike other people,”
her mother had explained. “Our traditions and our community keep us safe and
make us who we are. Those people who
think it’s okay for men and women to touch in public or turn on lights on Shabbos compromise with the word of
God.” She didn’t need to remind Hannah of God’s feelings about such
compromisers and doubters.
Hannah had never had a
conversation of more than a few dozen words with someone who wasn’t haredi, ultra-orthodox. But under the covers,
with a flashlight, while her family slept, she would read decidedly un-orthodox
books, even essays by Emma Goldman, a distant relative whom
her family referred to rarely and then only in angry whispers. But what she wrote made sense: The most violent element in society is ignorance.
And she could be funny: Every
society has the criminals it deserves.
As she walked, Hannah delighted in the tiny droplets of rain
that hit her face with cold little hellos, like angels brushing their wings
against her skin. Yes, she was odd, but in a nice way. Or so she hoped.
The sky darkened and the droplets became full-fledged
raindrops. The butcher, Mordechai Kaplan, stood
in the doorway of his shop, looking out on the street, now deserted except for
Hannah. His stomach seemed about to burst through his blood-splattered apron. Blood?
Only small spots, but there shouldn’t have been any by the time the meat
arrived at his store. The shochet must
drain all blood from the carcass.
Although she’d known him
for four years—a relative newcomer to the community, he’d arrived from upstate,
when the community’s previous butcher died—Hannah averted her eyes, as she
would with any man outside her home. But also, the way he always stared at her
while he spoke to her mother seemed creepy. Yet another example of the
overactive imagination Mother chided her about.
A puddle forced her to
step closer to the shop, close enough to smell the rotten egg stink of bad
chicken.
“Come in, warm up,” the
butcher said.
She’d never do such a
thing.
He stepped into the rain
and looked up and down the street. Then he grabbed her wrist. Yanked her
inside.
Hannah screamed. He
slapped her.
“Shut your mouth!”
Squeezing her wrist so
hard she thought he would break it, he locked the door with his free hand and
shut the lights in the front. He dragged her past the counter and into the back
room, her rubber heels squeaking along the floor. She squirmed but couldn’t
escape his grip. He slammed the heavy wooden door, trapping her in the place
where he cut the meat. A single bulb hanging from a frayed cord did little to
illuminate the room. Cold mist wafted from the adjoining meat locker’s ajar
steel door.
Her stomach clenched. She
was too scared to scream, only a soft high-pitched mewl. Was he going to hang
her on a hook like a side of beef?
Her gaze fixed on the
knives and cleavers arrayed along the pitted wooden table, splattered circles,
oblongs, and tears of blood everywhere. Dead eyes stared from a severed chicken
head.
Everything went fuzzy.
He let go of her. His
hands went to his belt.
She darted toward the
door.
He grabbed her arm. Spun
her around. Slapped her face.
“Stand still!”
“Wha-what are you going
to—?”
“I said, shut up.”
He took a long glittery
knife from the table and held it in front of her face. Would he slice
her throat in a single motion like a schochet
slaughtering an animal?
He
touched the point of the knife to her neck. She trembled.
“Take
off your coat.”
She
shook her head. The knife-point cut her.
Still
holding the knife to her neck, he unbuttoned her coat and pulled it open so it
fell to the floor.
“Now
your blouse.”
She
couldn’t move except to shiver like on the coldest day ever.
He
stuck the blade between her neck and the fabric. She felt its tip in her backbone, a tiny disgusting mouse running up
and down her spine.
“Are you going to take it
off, or should I cut it off?”
What would Mother say if
she came home with her nice new shirt cut to ribbons?
Her hands shook. She
couldn’t undo the buttons.
He slapped her. Her face
felt as if it was on fire. She tasted blood. He hit her again. He stared into
her eyes.
“I’m sorry I hit you,
Hannah.” he said, voice soft like her uncle’s. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just
do what I say and everything will be fine.” He brought the knife back to her
neck, almost gentle now, like Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah. “Please don’t
make me hurt you.”
She undid the top button,
then the next.
She didn’t want to die.
She whispered, “Sh'ma
Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad,” Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the
Lord is One. The prayer a distant relative had said while being burned at the
stake for refusing to renounce his religion. She took a deep breath. She had to
do something, couldn’t just let him…
Hannah hit him. He
laughed. She tried to scratch his face. He grabbed her hand and pushed back
until her wrist started to crack. Then he punched her stomach. She doubled up.
Taking a handful of her hair, he pulled her into a standing position. She shook
all over.
The light from the single
bulb that had seemed dim before now burned her eyes.
He held the knife an inch
from her right eye.
“If you want to be able
see, you’ll take your clothes off. Now!”
Tears streaming down her
cheeks, she took off her blouse, then let her skirt drop to the floor. She tried to cover her
chest and down there.
“Stand straight. Hands at
your side. Don’t make me tell you again.”
Her teeth chattered. She had
to calm herself. She tried to count the tiles on the floor, couldn’t get beyond
two.
“Take off your
underwear.”
She shook her head.
“Take it off!”
“I…ca-can’t.”
He nodded as if he
understood, then cut her underclothes. Not all the way. Enough so they drifted
to the floor like dead leaves.
“Because you’ve been
good, you can leave on your shoes and knee socks.”
He untied his apron.
Undid his pants.
She whimpered.
The knives! She feinted
toward the door. Pants around his ankles, he blocked her way. She darted toward
the table.
He grabbed her hair, then
yanked it so hard, she fell to the floor. He kicked her, knocking the air out
of her. He pulled her to her feet by her hair.
“Try to run or fight me,
and I’ll really hurt you.” He slapped her again.
Through tear-clouded
eyes, she again looked at the knives on the table. Too far.
“Lie down.”
She didn’t move. He
shoved her. She fell. Her head bonked on the floor. The butcher flopped on top
of her. She bucked, not even moving him an inch. He held her shoulder and
forced her legs apart. Then…
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