The Book of Separation: A Memoir

The memoir of a woman leaving behind her faith and her marriage to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a world unknown to her.

A New York Times Editors’ Choice

A Best Book Pick by O, The Oprah Magazine; Jewish Week; Real Simple

“An intimate tale of departure . . . [Mirvis] movingly conveys the heartache that accompanies the abandonment of one way of life in search of another.” —New York Times Book Review

Born and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and rituals prescribed by this way of life. After all, to observe was to be accepted and to be accepted was to be loved. She married a man from within the fold and quickly began a family.

But over the years, her doubts became noisier than her faith, and at age forty she could no longer breathe in what had become a suffocating existence. Even though it would mean the loss of her friends, her community, and possibly even her family, Mirvis decides to leave her marriage and her religious world and forge a new way of life. In order to do so, she must learn to silence her fears and the voices telling her who she is supposed to be.

Brave and inspiring, The Book of Separation illuminates universal themes of faith, doubt, love, and change, and explores what it means to heed your inner compass at long last.

“Capable of both wry humor and darkly apt turns of phrase, Mirvis is a gifted writer reflecting on her identity: first through the prism of organized religion, then through a self-charted life.” —Chicago Tribune

“The author’s sensitive thematic treatment of belonging and individuality and her candor about the terror she experienced leaving the only community she had ever known makes for moving, inspiring reading. A thoughtful, courageous memoir of family, religion, and self-discovery.” —Kirkus Reviews

© 2023 Mariner Books (Ebook): 9780544520547

Release date

Ebook: 18 August 2023