Hilarious and endearing...Shmutz is a dirty book with a pure heart.” —The New York Times In
this witty provocative and compulsively readable coming-of-age story” (Cosmopolitan) a young
Hasidic woman on a quest to get married fears she will never find a groom because of her secret
addiction to porn. Like the other women in her ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn community Raizl expects
to find a husband through an arranged marriage. Unlike the other women Raizl has a secret.
With a hidden computer to help her complete her college degree she falls down the slippery
slope of online pornography. As Raizl dives deeper into the world of porn at night her daytime
life begins to unravel. Between combative visits with her shrink to complicated arranged dates
Raizl must balance her growing understanding of her sexuality with the expectations of the
family she loves. Clever subversive juicy and surprising” (Deesha Philyaw author of The
Secret Lives of Church Ladies) Shmutz explores what it means to be a fully realized sexual and
spiritual being caught between the traditional and modern worlds.
