A haunting novel set in New York’s contemporary Chassidic Jewish community moves back and forth between present and recent past. At nine Gittel sees her best friend Devory raped by the girl’s teenage brother. Gittel doesn’t understand what she witnesses, only that it frightens her. By the time she is almost eighteen, Gittel has blocked out everything that happened, including the trauma of Devory’s death by suicide months later. When she turns eighteen, Gittel marries. In learning about sex for the first time she finally realizes what happened to Devory years before. Devastated by grief, guilt, and anger, Gittel is determined to break the shattering silence about Devory. But the insular Chassidic community is ruled by powerful rabbis who don’t want scrutiny from police or others in the outside world. There are wonderful people within and beyond the Chassidic community who support Gittel, including her parents, who knew the truth from the beginning and stumbled through their own grief and fear—speaking out would have meant being ostracized. Gittel’s response to the abuse she witnessed as a child forms the taut center of this searing story, but the narrative is richly woven with appreciative details about Chassidic life, including several funny, endearing riffs on Chassidic culture from teenage Gittel’s perspective. At the same time, it’s a novel that powerfully condemns the actions of any community that enables silence, suffering, and abuse to continue. Chayil, who wrote under a pseudonym, concludes the novel with an affecting afterword discussing the experiences that informed her writing of Hush. (Age 14 and older)

Inside the closed community of Borough Park, where most Chassidim live, the rules of life are very clear, determined by an ancient script written thousands of years before down to the last detail�and abuse has never been a part of it. But when thirteen-year-old Gittel learns of the abuse her best friend has suffered at the hands of her own family member, the adults in her community try to persuade Gittel, and themselves, that nothing happened. Forced to remain silent, Gittel begins to question everything she was raised to believe.

A richly detailed and nuanced book, one of both humor and depth, understanding and horror, this story explains a complex world that remains an echo of its past, and illuminates the conflict between yesterday's traditions and today's reality.