Bee Season

From Barnes & Noble

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Does adolescent insecurity, Jewish mysticism, the Hare Krishnas, and obsessive-compulsive disorder seem like a lot to pack into a first novel? Myla Goldberg tackles all that and more in a seamless, compelling narrative in Bee Season. Not bees as in honey, but bees as in S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G. The kind you either dreaded or loved as a child.

When 9-year-old Eliza Naumann finds out she has an unusual talent for spelling, she is utterly confounded. The long-time disappointment in her highly intelligent family, Eliza has grown accustomed to her role as under-performer. Her father Saul spends his evenings immersed in Jewish mystical studies; her mother Miriam, a successful lawyer and compulsive housekeeper, maintains a safe emotional distance from her family; and her brother Aaron usurps what little time Saul has to offer in the form of spiritual instruction in his father's hallowed study.

Initially very much alone in this quirky family, Eliza becomes the center of attention when she wins the regional spelling bee and goes on to face the nationals. Her father quickly jettisons Aaron's spiritual education in favor of training Eliza to win, and her mother spends more and more time at the office. Left to his own devices, Aaron is drawn into an eastern religious cult (the Hare Krishnas) and begins to lie about his whereabouts while Miriam's life begins to spin out of her careful control.

With impeccable imagery, Goldberg's extraordinary skill brings the trials of children's competition in the classroom, onstage, and within one's own family to brilliant, blinding light and details the unraveling of one family in just a few, untended months. (Spring 2000 Selection)

Scott Tobias

While it's common for writers or artists to claim that American families like Eliza's suffer from a feeling of spiritual emptiness, Goldberg doesn't take the usual shots at suburbia, the media, or consumerism. In her hermetic universe, God is at the mercy of family dysfunction and dumb luck; at any time, Eliza's connection to her father and the Jewish mystics could be shattered by a single misspelling. As Goldberg expertly demonstrates, the pressures of spelling bees may seem ridiculous, but they're closer to ordinary life than most would care to admit.
— Onion AV Club

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

This "intense and enjoyable" debut novel filled with "interesting characters" is a bittersweet coming-of-age story in which a girl with an extraordinary talent for spelling examines the unraveling fabric of a family, with a startling outcome. "A gem of a book." "This book is A-W-E-S-O-M-E and captivating." "Two thumbs up."

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

An eccentric family falls apart at the seams in an absorbing debut that finds congruencies between the elementary school spelling-bee circuit, Jewish mysticism, Eastern religious cults and compulsive behavior. Nine-year-old Eliza Naumann feels like the dullest resident of a house full of intellectuals--her older brother, Aaron, is an overachiever; her mother, Miriam, is a lawyer; and her father, Saul, is a self-taught scholar and a cantor at the community synagogue. She surprises herself and the rest of the Naumanns when she discovers a rare aptitude for spelling, winning her school and district bees with a surreal surge of mystical insight, in which letters seem to take on a life of their own. Saul shifts his focus from Aaron to Eliza, devoting his afternoons to their practice sessions, while neglected Aaron joins the Hare Krishnas. Seduced by his own inner longings, Saul sees in Eliza the potential to fulfill the teachings of the Kabbalah scholar Abulafia, who taught that enlightenment could be reached through strategic alignments of letters and words. Eliza takes to this new discipline with a desperate, single-minded focus. At the same time, her brilliant but removed mother succumbs to a longtime secret vice and begins a descent into madness. Goldberg's insights into religious devotion, guilt, love, obsessive personalities and family dynamics ring true, and her use of spelling-as-metaphor makes a clever trope in a novel populated by literate scholars and voracious readers. Her quiet wit, balanced by an empathetic understanding of human foibles, animates every page. Although she has a tendency to overexplain, Goldberg's attentive ear makes accounts of fast-paced spelling competitions or descriptions of Miriam's struggles to resist her own compulsions riveting, and her unerring knack for telling details (as when Eliza twitches through a spelling bee in itchy tights) captures a child's perceptions with touching acuity. While coming-of-age stories all bear a certain similarity, Goldberg strikes new ground here, and displays a fresh, distinctive and totally winning voice. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

Saul Naumann and his wife, Miriam, appear to have an unremarkable marriage. He works in the temple, and she is a compulsive lawyer. Of their two children, Aaron seems destined to become a rabbi, while Eliza is an underachiever. Suddenly, Eliza demonstrates a talent for spelling, and everyone's life is transformed. After finishing second in a national spelling bee, she becomes her father's pet project. Convinced that she has a gift that will allow her to receive shefa, a concept developed by a Jewish mystic named Abraham Abulafia in 1280, he begins daily study sessions with her that eclipse everything else in their lives. Saul fails to notice Aaron's growing disaffection and clandestine immersion in Hare Krishna. Miriam's behavior also becomes more distant and aberrant. Eventually, a family crisis ensues. First novelist Goldberg's story is one of personal voyages. As each character embarks on an individual quest for personal meaning and fulfillment, the family spirals into chaos. The result is not always compelling, however; too much time is devoted to Eliza's study of words. For larger collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/00.]--Kimberly G. Allen, American Inst. of Architects, Washington, DC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

School Library Journal

YA-Eliza and Aaron Naumann are never chosen for school teams and struggle to make friends. Their father, a cantor devoted to the study of Jewish mysticism, spends his days reading ancient Hebrew texts, cooking the meals, and taking care of the family. Their mother is a lawyer and the breadwinner. The parents sleep in separate rooms and barely converse. Saul Naumann hopes that "gifted-and-talented" 16-year-old Aaron will follow in his footsteps and become a scholar. Nine-year-old Eliza is a C student of whom little is expected. However, when she wins her school's spelling bee, things begin to change. After she earns first place in district and area competitions, she becomes the focus of her father's attention. Jealous, Aaron reacts by exploring alternate religions and focuses on the Hare Krishnas, where he feels welcomed and valued. Meanwhile, their mother, a kleptomaniac since childhood, has graduated from shoplifting to breaking and entering. Finally, she is arrested and placed in a mental hospital. As the family unit breaks apart, Aaron finds the courage to tell his father of his new religion, and Eliza declares her independence from her father during the national spelling bee. Teens will identify with these young people as they seek out their own identities while risking the loss of parental approval.-Molly Connally, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Giles

It is amazing how quickly a true talent can announce itself. In the case of Mylas Goldberg, it is now even a matter of pages, but of sentences...a marvelous debut novel.
—Newsweek

Dwight Garner

A dispassionate, fervidly intelligent book that comes by its emotion honestly . . . has something else going for it, something you didn't realize you'd been missing in recent fiction: a bit of actual suspense . . . Bee Season flickers past like a dream, and it is artful indeed.
—New York Times Book Review

Cathy Langer

The protagonist of this first novel is a heretofore-unremarkable nine-year old girl who is revealed to be a spelling prodigy. This novel is beautifully written and draws the reader into the world of this young girl, the compelling world of Jewish mysticism, Spelling Bee politics, family dynamics, and deep secrets. Absolutely amazing!
—Tattered Cover

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

As mundane and unmystical as these longings of Eliza's may be, you never stop caring about whether she will fulfill them....sensitive and witty.
—The New York Times

Claxton

Goldberg, who is only 27, has something rare in first-time novelists, and for that matter, in more experienced writers: an appreciation of the subtlest dynamics of human relationships and experience. And as a stylist has the equivalent of a musician's perfect pitch. This is a fantastic first novel, that I wanted to read again as soon as I'd finished it.
—Time Out New York

Kirkus Reviews

An impressive debut about a young girl from a brilliant but eccentric family whose special talent earns her a place in the family and finally in the world. Eliza Naumann has never really excelled at anything. In fact, she's always been rather ordinary—to the point where she seems pretty much to disappear amid the other members of her highly accomplished family. Her father Saul is a brilliant scholar, entirely dedicated to the study of Jewish mysticism. He has, in turn, poured all his hopes and dreams for spiritual enlightenment into his sensitive and thoughtful son Aaron, while his wife Miriam, though a lawyer, drifts off into an emotional haze, trying to put meaning into her existence by entering other people's empty houses and stealing small, seemingly insignificant items. Eliza remains invisible and at sea in the midst of this hyper-odd family—until her unknown talent for spelling is surprisingly unearthed. After having been more or less ignored for all of her nine years, she wins the attention of her schoolmates, teachers, and, most important, of her father, who responds not so much because of the acclaim Eliza is beginning to garner, but because he suddenly sees in her a disciple, someone who, through the use of letters, words, language, can be used as a conduit to God. Her broth Aaron, meanwhile, having always been the golden child but now left to his own devices, begins searching for enlightenment through other religions, eventually settling on Hare Krishna. And so, just as Eliza is finding her way in life, her family starts to unravel, fall away, and drift farther and farther apart. Goldberg is a gifted writer, but her style—delivered in a detached, almostclinicalprose that gives the feeling of fable or dream—holds the reader at a distance and keeps her characters from ever quite coming into the third dimension.