You Are Not What We Expected

by Sidura Ludwig

This stunningly intimate collection of stories is an exquisite portrait of a Jewish community — the secular and religious families who inhabit it and the tensions that exist there — that illuminates the unexpected ways we remain connected during times of change.

When Uncle Isaac moves back from L.A. to help his sister, Elaine Levine, care for her suddenly motherless grandchildren, he finds himself embroiled in even more drama than he would like in their suburban neighbourhood. Meanwhile, a nanny miles from her own family in the Philippines, cares for a young boy who doesn’t fit in at school. A woman in mid-life contends with the task of cleaning out the house in which she grew up, while her teenage son struggles with why his dad moved out. And down the street, a mother and her two daughters prepare for a wedding and transitions they didn’t see coming.

Spanning fifteen years in the lives of a multi-generational family and their neighbours, this remarkable collection is an intimate portrait of a suburban Jewish community by a writer with a keen eye for detail, a gentle sense of humour, and an immense literary talent.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Jewish, Adult Fiction, Adult

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2020

About the author

Writer. Story finder. Strong Tea Drinker. Challah baker.

Reviews

[CanadianReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Thornhill, a suburban community with a significant Jewish population on the northern edge of Toronto, Ludwig’s short stories focus mostly on Elaine Levine and her 72-year-old brother Isaac. As the collection opens, Isaac has returned to Canada from L.A. to help his younger, recently widowed sister, who has been saddled with raising her grandchildren. Elaine’s daughter, Carly, plagued by the demons of drug addiction, took off for Las Vegas a couple of years before, leaving her son and daughter in the care of her parents. She never came back. When Oscar, Elaine’s husband succumbs to the aggressive Parkinson’s Disease that forced him into retirement, Elaine contacts her brother, calling upon him to abandon his peripatetic lifestyle and assist her with the kids.

Two of Ludwig’s stories focus on curmudgeonly, disruptive Isaac’s need to create excitement for himself in this staid, mostly middle-class Canadian community. He makes a scene at a supermarket for falsely advertising that it’s the largest kosher grocery store in North America, and he takes a Jewish private-elementary-school principal to task for inappropriately flying the Israeli flag below the Canadian one on the same pole. Other stories that round out the collection focus on Elaine’s grandchildren’s troubles, the failing marriages of women who have married into orthodox Jewish families, and other kids who are trying to weather familial dysfunction and ruptures. Ludwig’s is a nuanced, finely observed collection, which I enjoyed reading.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First class stuff, delightfully observant, alive to the way things look and smell and taste, and to the nuances and demands of family and community life. Set in a Jewish community in Canada these interconnected stories are very good, some like 'Loose Change' are sublime. In the latter a widow recalls a train trip she took with her husband as retirees, and achieves a moving epiphany. The stories deal with death and illness and all phases of life. We see Isaac in several stories, a bombastic uncle returned to help his sister cope with her grandchildren, and watch him age from a campaigner/complainer to an old man with a debilitating illness who nevertheless demands attention and respect.

This is a superb collection bearing comparison with Elizabeth Strout (I may have nicked that comparison, I forget who from, but they are that good).

* I do know Sidura as she was in the writers' group I attend when she lived in the UK in the early 00s for a few years.

[Claire]

DNF.
Je n'ai pas accroché et j'ai trouvé la lecture ennuyante.

[Stef · Rating 5 out of 5]

You Are Not What We Expected is a collection of short stories with intertwined characters and themes, set in the suburbs of Toronto, in a Jewish neighbourhood. Ms. Ludwig writes with poignant details about her characters and their surroundings, making it easy to invoke feelings of empathy, humour, disgust, sadness and hope as you read along. Having grown up in the neighbourhood depicted in the stories, I can attest that Ludwig has done an excellent job in capturing the unique town and its inhabitants. I was left wanting more and hope that there will be a follow up collection where we will learn more about some of the secondary characters. This was beautifully and thoughtfully written with deep character development and keen attention to small details which enable the reader to envelope themselves in the story.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorites in this collection of linked short stories about a contemporary, multi-generational Jewish family and their neighbors in suburban Toronto are: "Joy of Vicks," "Loose Change," "The Greatest Love Story Never Told," and "The Album." Readers who enjoyed Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman, The Fourth Corner of the World by Scott Nadelson, or "slice of life" stories will want to check out this accessible, highly readable (and relatable) new collection by Sidura Ludwig​.

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just beautiful. I came away from this book deeply moved by its characters, their families, and their intimate stories. This seamless collection is heartrending, funny, and a complete joy to read.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contentious family dynamics are at the heart of Sidura Ludwig’s collection of linked stories, You Are Not What We Expected. Set primarily in a Jewish community in suburban Thornhill, Ontario, Ludwig’s stories chronicle the domestic tribulations of the Levine family and other characters from the neighbourhood. These are tightly written stories of people at odds with one another and with their circumstances. Chief among Sidura’s cast of characters are seventy-something Isaac and his sister Elaine Levine. Isaac has moved back to Ontario at Elaine’s behest to help take care of her grandchildren, Ava and Adam, after the death of Elaine’s husband Oscar. Elaine’s daughter Carly, the children’s mother, has skipped town and is no longer in the picture. Elderly Isaac, cantankerous with strong opinions and eccentric fixations, is not shy about making demands and voicing objections. In “The Flag” he becomes enraged when he sees two flags flying on a single pole in front of a Jewish school, with the Israeli flag flying under the Canadian. He berates the principal over this insult to Israel but can only watch, exhausted and breathless, as his concerns are dismissed with platitudes. Later he returns to the school and commits an act of righteous thievery. In “The Elaine Levine Club,” Elaine asks Isaac to mind Ava and Adam while she meets with a group of women she encountered on Facebook, all of whom share the same name: Elaine Levine. And in “The Happiest Man on Sunset Strip,” Isaac, older now and living with the effects of a debilitating stroke in a long-term care facility, receives a visit from his grand-niece Ava. Ava, home from Israel for a wedding and intending to stay with her uncle for only a few minutes, is nonplussed when Isaac asks her to take him to McDonald’s, and then grows resentful and increasingly desperate as things spiral out of control. Ludwig’s simply constructed sentences are a pleasure to read. Her straightforward prose is lucid, precise and vividly alive with evocative detail. These gently humorous stories are not overly complex, but gain emotional heft from the characters’ intricate backstories. You Are Not What We Expected is a thoroughly entertaining and notable short-fiction debut from a compassionate author whose great strength is depicting the subtle (and not-so-subtle) tensions that simmer within families.

[Erika Dreifus]

Mostly interconnected short stories set in the Toronto area. Several stories focus on members of Elaine Levine's family, including her troubled adult daughter; the two grandchildren Elaine raises after her daughter abandons them; and the brother who returns to Canada from Los Angeles to help out on Elaine's request. I found the book's final story, which wraps up a great deal of the Levine family history, to be painful but powerful reading. (See also my friend Rachel's review at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....)

[Ann Armstrong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ludwig's writing is simple and lucid. I found the short stories moving and full of insight. While I did not relate to the details of the short stories, the themes Ludwig explores are universal and moving. I loved the book - I was carried along by the stories and appreciated how they were linked. I was sorry that the book ended!

[Charlotte]

This collection of linked short stories paint pictures of members of a Jewish community in Canada getting along (or not) with one another over 15 years. Ludwig is compassionate but clear-eyed in her storytelling, allowing the reader to grow to love her characters, warts and all.

This would be a great book for discussion of change, community, culture-- the strengths and cracks we find when our world changes over time.

#NetGalley, #YouAreNotWhatWeExpected

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so deeply moved by this collection of short stories.

I think short stories is that special genre that, when aptly used, is cutting through a heart like ten thousand knives with succinct and exact words that are able to create depths of emotional echo in a reader. I felt that the author managed to catch a spectrum of her characters’ feelings, moods and convey not only their immediate response to the events on their lives, but also their life story.

I appreciated how the book itself was structured: by the latter stories, I could realise that all characters are connected – someone turns out be someone’s neighbour, a classmate, or a playdate parent. Another gem in the book composition I discovered is that several stories concern members of one family and span over three generations. There is no eventuality or connection between the characters; their actions do not influence the narrative of other stories. This feature only shows the grandeur of life where behind each door a whole story is unfolding.

The fact that all characters are somehow related is due to the fact that they are all inhabitants of Thornhill – a traditionally Jewish neighbourhood in Toronto. I would say that but for two-three stories where being familiar with everyday Jewish references adds to the narrative (wigs for married/divorced women, people cringing at of pork noodles in a restaurant, or strictness of dress code at an Orthodox wedding), the stories are not about Jewish community. In this regard, it is not a collection of Jewish short stories. It’s about people who are … well, people in any community anywhere – those who are coming from broken families and land into broken families; about people who are escaping as far as to a Middle Eastern desert only to never return to the memories of their hometown; about kids who were forgotten at the midst of the heated divorce arguments; about losing one’s lifelong spouse and knowing they is the next to go.

I highly recommend this book for its depth created by excellent writing, for its beauty, and a unique angle to portraying life.

My favourite stories from the book? Probably Keeping the Ghosts Warm and Pufferman.

[Suzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and House of Anansi Press for the free e-copy of this book! This quiet book presents stories from different perspectives in a small Jewish-Canadian town, slowly painting the picture of a central dysfunctional family: the Levines.

The quick slice-of-life stories were my favorite; I loved The Album, the story of a mother grappling with an unnamed illness while her transgender son comes out and her daughter marries into a very religious family, and Keeping Ghosts Warm, about a son and a mother both reflecting back on their childhood nuclear families. Ludwig does a wonderful job of depicting the silent growing pains of childhood and the inner turmoil of adults, both necessary in a book with little dialogue.

Other stories had really clever premises (a club of women who all have the same name, the titular story in which a man’s mother breaks up with his wife for him), but did not fully land for me. I found that a lot of the stories revolving more centrally around the Levines did not pack the punch of those focused on their neighbors. When reading short stories, I’d like them to stand on their own even if they are also contributing to a larger overarching narrative, and each of the Levines’ stories seemed a bit more like chapters in a novel. While their story arc did come to a satisfying conclusion by the end of the book, it just wasn’t what I was hoping for in a story collection.

While most of the characters featured in the collection seemed to showcase unique parts of the Jewish experience, the abundance of praise for Israel felt overwhelming and drew attention to the dearth of any anti-Zionist perspectives. The mention of “secular and religious Jews” in the blurb suggests the presence of a variety of perspectives, and this seems like a blind spot.

Overall, this collection had many vivid moments, but it did not stand out as much as I had hoped it would.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars: I realized before I started reading that this is probably the first book I’ve read about Jewish people that isn’t about or taking place during the Holocaust. Jewish culture and people are about so much more than the trauma they experienced so I was looking forward to reading these stories and learning more about Jewish culture in Toronto.

For the first half of the book I was not really enjoying it to be honest. I thought some of the characters (Isaac and Adam) were totally unlikeable. The second half of the book helped the book grow on me and I enjoyed it a lot more. I liked that the stories all had some sort of connection to each other, and it was interesting to find out at certain points of the short story where they connected with another family in the community. Many struggles of these families were intergenerational, showing how a mother running away affected her children, how parents fighting led a child to resent his mother or a child wanting to make themselves invisible. The stories are humanizing, ordinary, visceral, and not what I expected in a good way.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of linked short stories, a genre I especially enjoy. The format reminded me of the work of Elizabeth Strout whose writing I very much admire. The stories weave in out of the lives of related characters, sometimes developing the same incidents from different points of view, often centering on the more-or-less main character of Isaac, a man in his 70's who has lived in many places in the world but has now come back to his hometown of Thornhill, Ontario.

Ludwig explores the diversity of Jewish culture in Thornhill and how it affects the lives of each of the characters. I enjoyed the depth of the stories and the character portrayals although sometimes the narratives were somewhat depressing.

My favourite stories were the early Isaac ones where he expresses outrage at the religious school that is flying the Israeli flag above the Canadian one and at the Sobeys that claims to be the largest kosher supermarket in North America. These were brilliant.

Overall, this was well worth reading and I definitely recommend it.

[Elma Schemenauer]

I bought this book because I lived for many years in Toronto's Bathurst and Steeles area--near Thornhill, where Sidura Ludwig's stories take place. During those years, I became very familiar with the ever-changing suburban community of Thornhill and the wide variety of people who live there. I feel a special empathy with Thornhill's Jewish community. The author brings it to life in a thoughtful, sympathetic, and sometimes amusing way. There are lots of tensions here, for example, between beliefs and practices, between secular Jews and religious Jews ("frummies"), and between old and new ways. I have a Mennonite background, and detect similar tensions within Mennonite communities. I explore some of them in my 1940s-era novel CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS, which is set in Vancouver and rural Saskatchewan. I'm grateful to Ludwig for writing YOU ARE NOT WHAT WE EXPECTED. It sheds light not only on her own community, but on others facing similar challenges.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t enjoy this book at all. To borrow a sentence:”you were not what I expected” there were so many disconnected characters that I couldn’t keep track of, each with the own sad dysfunctions. Whether they ever connected, as promised, I can’t tell you as I stopped my self-flagellation just short of the final chapter. Not an ad for Thornhill, Ontario, that’s a fact. I did not “fall in love” with the characters as other reviewers allegedly did. Not even one. Some I actively disliked. Do not read this if you are already slightly depressed or perhaps despondent about the state of the world because this will push you over the edge, honest. Why two, not one star? Because the author is Canadian and in her writing classes,she was likely taught that the more depressing one’s novel is, the more likely one will win an award and praises from the CBC book critics. The writing wasn’t bad, just the story lines, in my opinion of course.

[Justine Bryson · Rating 3 out of 5]

do not read this book if you want a nice uplifting story. it was so sad. I still enjoyed it clearly and its an easy read because it only took me 2 or 3 sittings.
A few things, there are quite a few different storylines and it's all very fragmented and a little confusing, to be honest. I know that's the point, it's supposed to mimic the chaos of life, but it just meant that stories felt undeveloped and it was hard to follow at times. Even so, I felt like I learned a little about Jewish beliefs/culture (all the characters were Jewish as it was set in a Jewish community in Canada) which was cool. That was my intention when I picked up the book anyways, I wanted to see a new perspective I haven't necessarily read about before. Overall, I did like it but probably won't read it again.

[Jerry Levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 and a half stars, rounded to 4. The collection was very insular, all the characters existing in some bubble (which was maybe the point). A depiction of the lives of characters in a suburban Jewish neighbourhood. The author can certainly write, that's a given. But it felt that to be realistic (and perhaps literary), every single story had to ultimately end very sadly. “Kitchen sink realism.” A few moments of joy wouldn't have hurt the collection, perhaps making the ensemble more realistic than it was. Overall, a decent read.

[BG · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always love to support Canadian authors and they never disappoint me. Short stories are such a unique genre of fiction that can be so impactful and this collection nailed it with impact! The voices of the characters were spot on. I can imagine what they looked like and how they moved. And the way each story connected with another just gave it all a rich effect! And, I learned something new about the Jewish community in Thornhill and how each member connects to their culture/roots/traditions in their own unique ways! So good!

[Ginny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interconnected short stories which shines a light on a modern day Jewish community. The stories explore themes of brokenness, disappointment, and the harsh outcomes of the choices we make in life. There is a theme that pitches orthodox Jewish practices against secular Judaism. Faith doesn’t offer solace in these stories and Jewish practice is no guarantee of happiness. This all sounds depressing, but actually, the stories are riveting and Ms. Ludwig evokes a lot empathy for her characters.

[Gilda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could say that I loved this book. It is set in Thornhill, Ontario, in a particular area where I have lived for 26 years. It was fun to read about the activities of fictional characters in real-life stores, malls, street corners, and other locations in my neighbourhood. But I found the actual story-telling confusing and the characters mostly unsympathetic.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of short stories focused on a Jewish family in Canada, dysfunctional and not happy at all. Elaine is the grandmother, who asks her brother, Isaac to come and help with the kids. The kids, Adam and Ava, have many issues to overcome. It was all a bit depressing, but interesting to read. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.

[Anna Rosner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wondrous book. These connected short stories pull the reader in and don't let go. Sidura Ludwig shows her deep understanding of the human psyche, the pains of childhood, of our elderly years, and of family. The last lines of every story are so powerful that they resonate for days. This is a stunning, emotional account of the lives of Jewish families.

[Kelly R · Rating 5 out of 5]

These characters stay with you long after the book has ended (for me, especially Puffer and Ava). I loved how the characters were connected to each other in different phases of their lives through the different short stories. Beautifully written.

[PAUL STARR · Rating 2 out of 5]

A depressing visit with the Thornhill Jewish community. I expected more from this novel after reading a positive review in the Montreal Gazette, but the stories didn't deliver. Just not my cup of tea...

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really find many characters redeeming and while the author showcased the varying degrees of Judaism in the community, there was a lot of Zionist leaning which was never critiqued which...isn't my thing.

[Cindy H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first half of this interconnected short story collection but halfway through it started to lose its appeal. I found the second half dull and depressing and I lost interest. I see the talent that the author possesses but this collection fell short for me.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7

[Richbern · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short story collection about the contemporary jewish experience in toronto. As will all collections, there’s varying quality, but overall a captivating look at a very specific community.

[Alexia Ferrari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good set of interconnected short stories. The stories are subtly related and yet standalone. Ludwig gets to the heart of the community she is describing through her characters.