Welcome to Heavenly Heights: A Novel [Hardcover]

Risa Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2003

A first novel written by PEN Discovery Award Winner Risa Miller, Welcome to Heavenly Heights describes a group of American Jews who have left the United States, not just to move to Israel, but to live in a settlement on the West Bank. Miller conjures a culture and a movement--part religion, part pipe dream--viewed through the pinhole of one ragged apartment building's door: its families, their dinners, their weddings, their marriages, their sorrows. While bombs can be heard at the edges of these pages, it is inside the settlement, Heavenly Heights where Miller's delicate, understated prose limns the lives of these tender souls.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For Orthodox Jews, Israel is not merely a country, but "the Land of Israel, the biblical promised portion"-in other words, "home." The families in Miller's first novel are mainly immigrants from the U.S. who now live in a small settlement in an embattled area outside Jerusalem, motivated by the conviction that it's their responsibility to reclaim the land of the biblical patriarchs. Miller convincingly portrays the faith that leads people to leave their comfortable homes in American suburbs and relocate to a dangerous place where car and bus bombs are always a threat, and random shootings are common. The plot follows several women, all residents of one apartment house, over the space of a year of changing weather, national crises and dramatically altered lives. Enlivened by Miller's fresh and spirited eye for imagery, the narrative builds a web of cumulative quotidian details that convey the culture shock of primitive living where water supplies are chancy, construction is often shoddy, the bureaucracy is overwhelming, and men stow their weapons in the foyer of the shul, next to the stack of prayer books. The characters are nicely nuanced, but quick shifts in chronology sometimes impede the narrative flow. In the end, the psychological landscape is the most impressive part of this often engrossing novel. But outside of portraying the settlers' fundamental religious convictions, Miller never really develops the other side of the argument-that the West Bank communities are provocative to their Arab neighbors. In the end, readers must decide for themselves whether the appealing characters are idealists or zealots, "heroes or just plain crazy," as one character muses.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Miller's first novel chronicles the lives of a group of Americans, newly immigrated to Israel with a variety of baggage-emotional as well as material. Religiously observant Jews, they have come to settle not in Jerusalem proper but in a West Bank settlement called Heavenly Heights. A quote from Psalm 137-"We will raise Jerusalem above our chiefest joy"-is the bulwark that sustains the group through countless travails. The young families form friendships, the children play simple games, marriages have their ups and downs, the cycle of Jewish holidays is observed, and a culture of sorts develops. Miller mainly conveys the story from the perspective of several wives who often gather on the balcony of one of the apartments in Building Number Four (where they all live) to pass the time while the husbands are at Sabbath prayer service. Kentucky-born Debbie, a convert to Judaism, sings country songs and quotes her granny while tending to her large brood of children. Tova, newly arrived from Baltimore, has given up a life of material plenty to lead a more spiritual one with her zealous husband, as well as her children. Random West Bank violence, the family tensions, and the stress of living in such close quarters are only hinted at in their attempts at cheerful banter. Miller artfully presents a sobering yet sympathetic view of a parochial lifestyle, an intimate cameo replete with its values, problems, and hopes. For most fiction collections.
Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (January 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312301804
• ISBN-13: 978-0312301804
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,575,164 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars glimpse into the lives of Israelis, January 29, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Welcome to Heavenly Heights: A Novel (Hardcover)

Reviewed by Judy Doenges
Sunday, January 12, 2003; Page BW10

Risa Miller's first novel, Welcome to Heavenly Heights is a story of community. In Israel's West Bank, several orthodox Jewish families from America have settled to make aliyah, a return to the land. Among them are Tova and her husband, Mike, who leave their upper-middle-class life in Baltimore for an apartment in Heavenly Heights, hard by the Jordanian border. Tova and Mike and their three children immerse themselves in the lives of the complex's other residents and attempt to adjust to ever-circling army helicopters and bomb searches.

Miller depicts their marginal existence in remarkable prose: The blue Judean sky is like "an eye restraining itself from tears." Miller's fine writing contrasts the emigrants' religious rituals with the stark life outside their homes. There's devotion in almost every moment of the settlers' days; even starting life over in Israel is a sign of religious dedication.

To Miller's credit, the settlers are not homogeneous. Tova's closest friend, Debra, was raised in Appalachia on country music and stories of her absent Jewish father. Now Debra sings twangy versions of spiritual songs. Fiery Sandy has only one child, which makes her an anomaly in the building, and she has difficulty seeing her son for the troubled child he is. Mr. Stanetsky, a Holocaust survivor, is the building's mortgage godfather, a rich immigrant who subsidizes the settlers' payments.

The novel doesn't have a plot per se; instead it charts the settlers' emotional and spiritual adjustments to Israel and to their perceived roles as pioneers. However, what Miller's novel lacks in action is more than made up for by her memorable portraits of people out of sync with both the country they've left behind and with the political reality of their new home.

Judy Doenges is the author of "What She Left Me"; she teaches at Colorado State University.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Episodic novel about the lives of West Bank settlers., May 18, 2003

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Welcome to Heavenly Heights: A Novel (Hardcover)

Risa Miller's first novel, "Welcome to Heavenly Heights," is a series of vignettes about a group of people living in the same building on the West Bank. The protagonists of this novel are American Jews who have left the comfort and security of their homes for a precarious existence as settlers in a disputed area of the Middle East.

Mike and Tova are one of the couples who make the move. She is a bit skeptical about leaving their comfortable home in Baltimore, but Mike will not allow Tova's qualms to get in the way of his vision for their future. Another settler is Debra, a convert who originally came from Appalachia. She is the daughter of an absentee Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. Debra loves to sing and her sunny disposition is infectious. Less sunny is Sandy, the mother of an only child, Yossi. Yossi has emotional problems and he is always getting into one scrape or another. Sandy and her husband, Nathan, have their hands full keeping their rambunctious son on an even keel.

Miller's book is not political, nor is it linear. There is no plot to speak of. The author acts as a photographer, taking snapshots of the residents of building number four in Heavenly Heights. We get to know these settlers only briefly and we see them as fallible people, each with his or her own issues, who have chosen to risk everything for their ideals.

Miller has attempted a difficult literary feat, and she does not completely succeed. The book has an unfinished feel, and there are several sections that left me merely puzzled as to what the author was trying to say. However, Miller does succeed in depicting the tremendous personal sacrifices that the settlers made when they chose to live in Heavenly Heights.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A BOOK TO BE READ AND REMEMBERED, December 15, 2002

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Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Welcome to Heavenly Heights: A Novel (Hardcover)

While newscasters trumpet the latest statistics from one of the most vied for areas of the world, first time novelist Miller puts very human faces on an often misunderstood way of living. Her perceptions are astute, her prose meticulous, and her powers of observation remarkable.

This is the story of a group of American Jews who leave the United States to make Aliyah - they go to Israel, to a settlement on the West Bank. It is the first year in their new home that Miller traces with artist's eye and abundant heart as she depicts a culture and a faith through their dinners, weddings, births, marriages, adjustments, and mikvahs.

What must it be like, what motivates one to leave the comforts of America for a dangerous place where car and bus bombings are a daily occurrence? Couple that fear with an iffy water system, a tedious, sometimes blind bureaucracy, and construction that often would not pass inspection.

It is a place where worship is familiar, but men bring guns to the shul. It is a land where the sound of dropping bombs echoes throughout. Yet, in the West Bank settlement of Heavenly Heights there can be heard the sound of laughter as friendships are forged and religious faith reigns supreme.

Winner of a PEN New England Discovery Award for this unpublished manuscript, Miller is a deft writer who does a service by sharing the lives of these sturdy souls. "Welcome To Heavenly Heights" is a book to be read and remembered.

- Gail Cooke