Jonathon turns to Moshe and Dovidl as they unroll the Torah. "Would you like a Sephardic or an Ashkenazic melody? Actually, I rather fancy Sephardic. I picked up a lovely niggun in Turkey." Jonathon bends over the scroll and begins the laiining in his light, springy head tone.

Fortunately, the author has included a glossary of terms at the back of the book. It becomes increasingly necessary through the course of the collection.

In some ways, Goodman's work feels like a gimmick. With her unusual background--growing up in a Jewish home in Hawaii while also spending time in England and then attending Harvard--the author has unique experiences to draw from for her stories. With this kind of life, it seems that anything she wrote would have to be original and thought-provoking. One of the author's characters, a poet and taxi-driver in New York explains this reasoning:

My kids are really lucky. They're growing up in at least five cultures: the traditional Yemeni at their grandmother's the Orthodox shtieble on the corner, Israel every summer, my friends from the Institute of Social Analysis and Greenwich Village, and our black neighborhood. That combination is just about unbeatable.

BUT there is something more to this book than that. Total Immersion is more than a series of sketches of specialized communities-it provides a humorous and engaging commentary on human nature.

The work might not be as impressive if it wasn't written by a 21-year-old. But it is very funny. Goodman's voice is assured and her humour is sharp. And despite her convoluted details, she gets to the point a lot faster than my grandma.