Fear and Yoga in New Jersey Author:Debra Galant Galant follows up her colorful debut, Rattled, with another funny suburban family satire. — Nina Gettleman's new yoga studio on the swank side of an old, unnamed Essex County town floods when her poorly placed waiting-room chakra-meditation fountain leaks. One of Nina's students threatens to sue, and she's unable to get solace from her husband, M... more »ichael, who has been laid off from his job as a meteorologist at Newark Airport.
Meanwhile, puberty-age son Adam has decided he's tired of being a lapsed Jew and wants to have a platinum bar mitzvah. The straw that breaks the familial camel's back is the arrival of Nina's hypercritical mother and elderly father, who take refuge in the family's home to escape a Florida hurricane.
And then Michael gets into some serious trouble with the law.
Galant has a lock on upper-middle-class suburban skewerings and makes ribald fun of overbearing Jewish mothers and terrorism crackdowns gone awry. But loose ends, an overextended midsection, a rushed ending and a protagonist who never really evolves make this sophomore effort fall short of enlightenment.« less