this novel is about a family of jewish immigrants who come to canada after world war one in pursuit of a better life. our main protagonist, hoda, falls into a life of child prostitution in order to support her father, who's blind and weaves baskets in order to make a living. what follows is a traumatic, and sometimes humorous, train wreck of events that follows hoda's attempt to live a fulfilling life and make ends meet. it's hard to look away from.

there's a point in this novel where hoda, who's still a naive child, gives birth to her newborn son after believing that she could only become pregnant if she repeatedly slept with the same person... otherwise, the "pieces" just won't "fit" together to form a whole human. she gives birth to him in her bedroom; she panics and crudely cuts and knots the umbilical cord before anonymously dropping him off at a local orphanage.

after a time jump, hoda is still offering her sexual services, and one day a young boy with a funny belly button waltzes in and... well, im sure you can put the pieces together and figure out what happens from there. needless to say, i haven't been that disgusted by a sex scene since watching park chan wooks oldboy for the first time.

4/5