Thank you to NetGalley/Grove Press for a copy of City of Laughter in exchange for an honest review.

An Epic Tale
Temim Fruchter’s debut is epic in every sense of the word. City of Laughter is a book that simultaneously weaves, sweeps and meanders through time. City of Laughter is very Jewish. Not just in its content but also in its narrative style. Be prepared for many asides and switches from third person to first person.

I’ll admit I was sometimes reticent to follow the novel’s seemingly random tangents. But, like all good Jewish tales, the payoff is worth it. (That said, you don’t need to be an expert in Judaism or Jewish folklore to follow along. I am a neophyte in this arena — in more ways than one — and I could follow along just fine.)

What City of Laughter does best is facing family history head-on. I, too, come from a culture that doesn’t particularly enjoy divulging family truths, so I resonated hard with Fruchter’s words here. (Luckily, my shaking apart of the foundation has not unearthed any skeletons quite as large.)

The juxtaposition of queerness, its joy, sorrow and liberation, when it meets tradition, is always a rich topic. Fruchter plays with that tension well. There are through-lines but also differences in how each queer woman, throughout time, deals with her queerness. (I also appreciate that after so many years of the community avoiding the topic, we are acknowledging that it can “run in the family.”)

Should You Read It?
Yes. But you need to be prepared. City of Laughter isn’t a beach book; it isn’t fluff. You have to be paying attention while you read. Or else you’ll find yourself lost or worse, not appreciating its gifts. Temim Fruchter has done something extraordinary with her debut, and I’m quite impressed. I think the patient reader will be, too.

City of Laughter is out on January 16, 2024. Pick up a copy at your local indie bookstore or library. 📚👩‍👧

I absolutely loved the Prologue. I loved it so much, that I paused the book to tell my husband about how such a simple scene was so magnificently told that it hooked me. That I loved the Jewish representation. That I loved the magical realism.

I wanted that book, Baruch’s story. I was disappointed when the POV switched in Chapter 1. I struggled to become invested in Shiva’s story. It was too slowly paced for me and I felt that it was missing the magic of the Prologue. I’ve made it to 25% and decided to DNF the book. I think it has some very good component parts but the manner in which the story is told has just not captured my interest. I did really enjoy the discussion of the mikveh.

I’m rating the first 25% of the book 3 stars. Thank you, Grove Atlantic for the ARC.

Shiva Margolin comes from a long line of women who have struggled with their place in their families and the world. Following a heartbreak and the death of her father, who has always been the glue in her family, Shiva is feeling unmoored. She decides to pursue her interest in Jewish folklore through a master's degree in the subject. Through the program, Shiva learns of an opportunity to visit Poland, where her family comes from, and she applies. Shiva hopes that walking the same ground as her mysterious great-grandmother will help her make sense of her family and herself. He trip to Poland is even more revelatory than she could have hoped, and causes her to reconsider much of what she had long thought about her family.

This was an interesting book. Its structure, moving among the stories of Shiva, her mother, her grandmother, and great mother, and between the literal and the mystical, works well as a thoughtful way to explore the nature of family relationships, how they evolve, and the impact of, and connection to, those relatives one never even met.

Highly recommended.

In a Polish shtetl, a nebulously gendered angel appears to give the gift of laughter to a badchan (Jewish wedding jester). This gift, and the life forced contained within it, is passed down through generations. In contemporary times, Shiva, a young queer woman who was raised Orthodox, searches through family history and Jewish lore to understand the aching but little-understood absence she feels at her core. Her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother grapple with their own silences, suppressions, and desires–all connected at the root to the same source.

Shifting between the generations of women in Shiva’s family, Fruchter’s novel explores the experience of absence, of grief and loss, of queerness, of laughter and life force. Rich with language and imagery and emotion, CITY OF LAUGHTER manages to evoke absence, oppression, silence, legacy, love and more. While the story is slow at times, curiosity and appreciation were enough to keep me reading. The voice–and Fruchter’s way of approaching the subject–is fresh and original. CITY OF LAUGHTER is a beautifully written exploration of so much that is hard to put into words.

I am so sorry, but I am dnfing this book. The story has been amazing, and I liked the overall themes and struggles Shiva goes through. I just don't think I am in the right head space to read this as of right now. I wasn't sucked in, and I recently came out of a book slump and I don't want to go back into one.

I will be keeping up with this author, and I want to buy a physical copy when it comes out. I do want to come back to City of Laughter when I am in a way better head space. Thank you again for sending me this eARC.

Captivating novel, a journey through queerness, storytelling, folklore and families. Recommended if you're looking for something a bit unusual and "think-out-of-the-box" mood.

This book was a bit hard to follow at times and I switched between the eBook and audiobook.
Shiva is aptly named based on the circumstances of her birth and family history. She decides to go to graduate school for Jewish Folklore to learn more about her family because there’s lots of mystery surrounding her mom and grandma.
The mythical bits lost me, but I enjoyed learning about the family through different POVs and across different time periods.
I finished the book but it was a struggle, I wasn’t that invested in the story nor cared what happened to any of the characters.

What a wonder of a book this is. An epic sweep across four generations of Jewish women, woven throughout with Jewish folklore and spiritual mystery, and reveling in queerness and the power of secrets that span over a hundred years, it is a gorgeous debut from an author whose prose and characterizations are entirely unique and both contemporary and timeless. Sure to be one of the finest novels of 2024--this should be on everyone's TBR list!!!

City of Laughter is an ambitious debut novel from Temim Fruchter spanning the course of multiple generation of Jewish women from Eastern Europe to the United States. It tackles themes including secretiveness, folklore, and queerness. Shiva lives in the present time and appears at a crossroads in her life. She is grieving the death of her father whom she was very close with, while struggling with the strained relationship with her mother who is unwilling/unable to share familial history with her. Additionally, she is struggling with a recent breakup with the first meaningful queer relationship in her life. On a whim, she applies to a graduate program in Jewish folklore and dives into history, trying to fit together missing pieces in her family. We also spend time with her mother Hannah who is finding herself more and more invested in her time surrounding death, while also trying to piece together her difficult relationship with her mother, Syl, who also struggled with her relationship with her mother Mira. There is a mythical narrator/spirit throughout the book, which I never fully latched onto, but the women were so fascinating and complex, Fruchter kept me engaged throughout. This was a moving debut, that I would recommend to others interested in complicated familial relationships, folklore/spirituality, and queerness.

Thank you to Grove Press via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

So much queer magic, Jewish folklore, FEMME joy, hauntology, and generational transmissions (both the trauma and resilience) here! Grandma as first femme! Brooklyn queers. Femme +Jewish as irrepressible, gorgeous, LOUD LAUGHTER - and that's our heritage. :) This is an ambitious and beautifully written debut novel. I absolutely love it & feel seen. City of Laughter expands our world of storytelling. "Intergenerational imagination" indeed. Much appreciation!

City of Laughter is an ambitious feat of literary fiction that explores the interwoven narrative of four generations of Jewish women reconciling with their faith, culture and identity. The primary protagonist is a queer millennial named Shiva who feels at a cross-roads in her life after the death of her father and increasingly strained relationship with her mother, Hannah. As Shiva attempts to forge her own path, questions about her own heritage arise and remain unanswered by her mother. As the narrative unfolds, we follow Shiva, Hannah, Sylvia and Mira (tracing four generations of Shiva’s maternal line) across decades and continents.

I really enjoyed this - admittedly I knew very little about Judaism and Jewish folklore going into this, but I learned a lot. Despite it being accessible, there’s no lack of of depth explored in terms of traditions, superstitions and histories that are central to each of our character’s identities. We see how legacies and stories get increasingly fragmented over generations and the irreversible erosion of culture unless we take deliberate action to preserve it.

Through each of our four characters, so many facets of identity are explored; namely queer rebirth, motherhood, obligation, love, and isolation. Each character feels really well developed and I enjoyed seeing the deliberate parallelism in the experiences between generations. The atmosphere also breathes a life of its own; a key theme is the importance of space and place, and how our surroundings witness burgeoning relationships and hold key memories.

City of Laughter also takes such a unique approach to exploring the idea of possession in both the literal and figurative sense. Possession acts in the tangible and symbolic sense to great success, and there is several passages I cannot wait to annotate once I get my hands on a physical copy.

The book is incredibly ambitious in the breadth of themes it tackles, and generally very successful. Some details can feel deliberately subtle at times and connections that initially appear tenuous end up playing a bigger role later in the story. This can make it a bit muddled or confusing if you’re reading this over a long period of time - so I’d suggest really sitting down with this and giving it your full attention. If you do, I’m sure you’ll find the culmination of story arcs really satisfying.

This book is a beautiful exploration of intergenerational trauma, Jewish culture and queerness. Each of the four women is given a literary format to show their story, from free prose to letters to recounting from the extradiegetic and mystical narrator. The interwoven folk stories complete the mosaic of Jewish culture, personal history and (queer) identity.
In the beginning, the novel felt very repetitive, so much so that I feel like it would have benefited from being 50 pages shorter. The prose was beautiful but often very much tell and not a lot of show. I would have liked to explore the feelings of Shiva, Hannah, Syl and Mira instead of being told what they were experiencing. I felt like this was especially prominent in the prose sections concerning Shiva and Hanna. About halfway through the novel starts to pick up speed and subsequently moves on to more subtle storytelling, though it never really moves out of the 'tell' territory.
Nonetheless, this story was an enriching read. It was fascinating and touching and has made me think about my place in the world and in my family.

City of Laughter by Temim Frutcher follows four generations of Jewish women with widely varied experiences in life but all touch on themes on themes of spirituality, family, and love. Shiva, the woman of the fourth generation, comes to study Jewish Folklore where her past will come to recontextualize her life thus far and in the future.

To preface, I think a novel that goes through time in a non-linear way is one of the hardest things to write and I applaud Frutcher for being able to write something cohesive with this plotline. From reading the summary of City of Laughter, I was sure this would be a new favorite. However, it fell flat for me. I was very drawn by the past generations, actually, and found myself losing interest in Shiva when she was the main narrator. While there is obviously an emotional heart to Shiva's point of view and journey, there is a juxtaposition in tone between the women of the past and Shiva that I found to be too great.

While this novel is not for me, it seems that many other reviewers enjoyed it-- so read it for yourself! This book is not for someone looking for a quick and easy read; to fully enjoy City of Laughter, make sure you have the time to fully dive into the world.

A beautiful book that weaves through many generations of Jewish women. I found this book very enlightening. I felt that the author went on tangents and took you away from the story at times, but they always came full circle.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to access an ARC of this story!
As a Jewish queer woman, I was intrigued by this plotline. While there were parts of it that I loved, such as Shiva’s storyline, the focus on her maternal family line, LGBTQ+ rep, and Jewish representation, the intertwining folklore storylines often confused me. I felt as though I was ultimately left with a lot of questions unanswered at the end of the story. Maybe it’s because some of it was a bit over my head.
Definitely a unique book and I’m very glad to have gotten the chance to read it!

Beautifully written, well-balanced, and unique, I enjoyed City of Laughter far more than I could have expected. The way Temim Fruchter explored Jewish folklore, queerness, mother-daughter relationships, loss, and more was intriguing and oddly fulfilling. I often don't like stories with a mythical or folkloric element to it, but I think Fruchter did this exceptionally well where it complemented the other aspects of the story without overpowering them and turning fully into fantasy. She walks that line well and the overall effect left me feeling enchanted in the best of ways. If Shiva were a real person, I would absolutely be friends with her.

Unfortunately, did not finish before losing access. The start seemed beautifully written however. Scored as a 3 due to this.

“The tale of a young queer woman stuck in a thicket of generational secrets, the novel follows her back to her family’s origins, where ancestral clues begin to reveal a lineage both haunted and shaped by desire“

This story follows Shiva’s personal growth via her family’s matriarchs and their Jewish folklore, connecting herself to her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Fruchter’s writing is beautiful and lyrical without being pretentious, and I loved it. I was in love with how queerness was shown as wholeness, with the connections between generations of women, and seeing Poland and NYC so robustly.

The Messenger was so alluring, too. Who is this queer figure, connecting the lives of all of the women? Bringing them intrigue and love and gifts? I don’t know, but I loved the mystery in these love stories.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for a copy of this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

A beautiful, touching story. This is something that would be appreciated by almost any reader. It was impossible to resist the stunning writing and the themes were all very interesting. Highly recommended.

While I was initially extremely excited for this book based on the description and prologue, I fear my expectations were not met by the end of the book. While CITY OF LAUGHTER contains many individual elements I would ordinarily love in a book--an intergenerational family mystery, queer characters, fantastical elements, grand philosophical questions--I felt the book struggled to draw everything together in a satisfying way. The Jewish folklore elements were incredibly compelling and the passages written in the early days of the City of Laughter with the visiting healer were among my favorite parts of the book, but they were far too infrequent and interjected the main story in ways that left me confused. The main character, with whom we spend the vast majority of the book, was far less interesting to me than her mother or even her grandmother, and I found myself wishing we had spent more time with them. In addition, I felt we were often told in a kind of essay format how the main character would think or what she had gone through in the past to inform her decisions now, as opposed to seeing those character traits or experiences in action in the present-day. The plot often felt contrived for her benefit, putting challenges and successes in her path at the exact time the narrative needed them, in ways that did not feel realistic. While I think Temim Fruchter is a brilliant writer, many passages veered overwritten, and I found myself wishing for more restraint. I will be following Fruchter's career to see what else she puts out in the future, but unfortunately this one did not live up to my expectations.