The author’s four moms are a constant background presence in this memoir of her first serious adult relationship and its demise.
Author Kellen Kaiser first met Lior Gold in their Berkeley Hebrew school class. He left to join the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and they drifted apart until reconnecting years later, shortly after 9/11, when he was home on leave and Kaiser was home between semesters in college. Romance bloomed, and the two of them attempted to keep it alive after he returned to his unit. The problem was not just distance, but Kaiser’s own struggle to balance her “peacenik” upbringing and left-wing Zionist leanings with dating an IDF combat soldier. On top of this, particularly after Lior leaves the IDF and returns to California, was the challenge of navigating the different expectations that any two people have in a relationship, especially two young people figuring out what they want to do with their lives.
Kaiser’s four moms are a constant background presence: Nyna, her biological mom; Margery, Nyna’s former partner; Helen, Nyna’s best friend, who parented with them; and Kyree, Nyna’s spouse from the time Kaiser was five until she was 18. Kaiser shows us how her upbringing imbued her with certain values and cultural touchstones, both Jewish and queer, that she carries into later life. She knows what it feels like to be marginalized, for example, and to have to speak up to defend those she loves. And in trying to get Lior to open up about his feelings, she observes, “I was used to a much higher level of emotional expressiveness. Think constant processing. Total sharing. Think raised by lesbians.”
She shows us, too, how lessons from each of her moms helped her through her journey—and how the overall message they conveyed, of building their lives on their own terms, helped her find comfort and strength as she and Lior parted.
I wish she had explained a few terms that may be unfamiliar to non-Jewish readers (like “Shabbas goy,” a non-Jew who helps observant Jews on the Sabbath). This is a minor quibble, though, for a compelling book that illuminates the sometimes complex interactions of identity, family, and relationships.
