only Shiksehs wrote such things."
I had somehow resisted the impulse to run and made the stupid mistake of trying to reason with her. "No Mama," I said, "smut is nondenominational." But my mother hadn't been satisfied with that so she highlighted the scenes, took the book to her rabbi and asked him for his opinion of her daughter, the sex fiend. The rabbi, who in all likelihood was just slightly less mortified than I was, assured her that writing about sex between two consenting adults within a loving, albeit edgy relationship was in no way a violation of the Torah. After that my mother had approached almost every member of the congregation, proudly showed them my book and said things like, "Can you believe this? My daughter the author. And you should