Dr. Nora Gold is the prize-win­ning author of five books and the founder and edi­tor of the pres­ti­gious lit­er­ary jour­nal Jew­ish Fic​tion​.net. Her books have won both The Cana­di­an Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Award and The Vine Cana­di­an Jew­ish Book Award, and her writ­ing has been praised by Alice Munro, Cyn­thia Ozick, and Dara Horn.

Title: In Sick­ness and in Health / Yom Kip­pur in a Gym

This new book by award-win­ning writer Nora Gold is com­posed of two novel­las: In Sick­ness and in Health and Yom Kip­pur in a Gym.

In Sick­ness and in Health is an intro­spec­tive nar­ra­tive writ­ten in the sec­ond per­son. It fol­lows five days in the life of a woman named Lily, who suf­fers from an undi­ag­nosed ail­ment that leaves her bedrid­den for near­ly a week every month. When­ev­er Lily has a series of awful sick days and can’t get out of bed, her mind goes down a rab­bit hole: she assumes that her hus­band is hav­ing an affair. To express this anger, Lily learns how to say ridicu­lous curs­es and angry phras­es in oth­er lan­guages. She regur­gi­tates them in a list, momen­tar­i­ly light­en­ing the seri­ous­ness of her con­di­tion..

Because Lily’s ill­ness comes and goes reg­u­lar­ly, she describes feel­ing like two dif­fer­ent peo­ple who can­not coex­ist. Gold writes clear­ly about how frus­trat­ing the health care sys­tem can be, and how women’s ill­ness­es and dis­abil­i­ties often go untreat­ed. Lily describes being unable to move when she is sick — yet doc­tors don’t believe the sever­i­ty of her con­di­tion.

Her epilep­sy influ­enced her school­ing, her rela­tion­ships, and her abil­i­ty to gain auton­o­my as she grew old­er. She strug­gled with bul­ly­ing and taunt­ing after hav­ing seizures. She fears those close to her will nev­er ful­ly understand her if they don’t have a deep under­stand­ing of her child­hood strug­gles with epilepsy.

Yom Kip­pur in a Gym, takes place in a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter gym­na­si­um dur­ing the evening ser­vice on Yom Kip­pur, just before the fast ends. It’s told from the per­spec­tives of a hand­ful of char­ac­ters, whose wor­ries, pre­oc­cu­pa­tions, and secrets read­ers will empathize with. Through­out the sto­ry, these char­ac­ters hope to be for­giv­en by their com­mu­ni­ty, their fam­i­lies, G‑d, and them­selves. Tom is strug­gling to main­tain a rela­tion­ship with his sib­lings, espe­cial­ly after the death of his abu­sive father. Ira suf­fers from men­tal ill­ness and con­tem­plates sui­cide. Lucy is find­ing it dif­fi­cult to accept her husband’s Parkinson’s diag­no­sis. Ezra con­tem­plates the fail­ure of his art career, caused by a mis­take he made many years ago that he hasn’t been able to for­give him­self for.

The rab­bi reminds all the con­gre­gants that human beings were cre­at­ed in the image of G‑d, and that even though the focus of Yom Kip­pur is on repen­tance, they should also ​“acknowl­edge [their] good qual­i­ties too” to avoid feel­ings of dis­cour­age­ment and despair. Weak and tired after a day of fast­ing, every­one is eager for the ser­vice to end. All of a sud­den, an emer­gency occurs that brings the var­i­ous nar­ra­tors togeth­er. Each char­ac­ter is thrown out of their prayers and reflec­tive thoughts and forced into a moment of action, pro­pelling them to real­ize the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty and their indi­vid­ual roles in it.

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