Neshama
In Marcella Pixley’s aching novel-in-verse Neshama, a lonely, gifted girl navigates middle school tensions and family secrets with some supernatural help.
For Anna, who records ghost poems in her notebook and is ostracized at school, “being normal / is hardest at night, / when the ghosts are lonely” and want to dance with her. Her mother assumes that the communicative deceased people are the work of Anna’s imagination; for her father, Anna’s behaviors are worrisome echoes of his lost sister’s peculiarities. The adults around her beg her to conform, but to do so would be too stultifying for a girl who knows “the terrible truth: / that being a girl means disappearing, / holding yourself so tight / no one will ever see / the light inside you.”
There’s a tactile beauty to the book’s poetic lines, which linger over Hebrew prayers, marbles lost and found in the sea, crushed flowers, and creaky docks. Its characterizations are vibrant, teasing out nuances in Anna’s grandmother’s kind understanding, her father’s fiery temper, and her sister’s innocent babbling. Oddball classmates, frustrated teachers, and a regretful neighbor round out the cast.
Anna herself is both sensitive and ferocious. Though her hurts make an acute impression throughout, she fights back when she’s picked on at school—sometimes with ghoulish assistance. She also has the capacity to recognize when others are acting out of pain. Triumphant moments come when, despite her own wounds, she reaches out in friendship to a mourning girl and to the unforgiven neighbor, who still smarts from the cruelties his father visited upon him. While these kindnesses enrage the wronged spirit of her aunt, they also bring opportunities for healing across the mortal divide.
A sensitive, affirming novel-in-verse, Neshama celebrates the life-giving power of children being able to embrace their unique gifts.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
