Strong At The Heart

Here’s something you might want to check out. A young filmmaker is producing a feature film that examines male experience of sexual abuse within the orthodox Jewish community.

I haven’t seen the film but have visited the website for Narrow Bridge http://www.narrowbridgefilm.com/. From his description and the website itself, the film appears to be about a religious young man in a new relationship who must come to terms with abuse by a trusted man in his childhood.

Have you seen the new young adult novel, Touching Snow, by M. Sindy Felin? It’s just been published by Atheneum.

The story is bluntly told through the eyes of a teenaged Haitian American girl, Karina, who chronicles her family’s suffering under her despotic stepfather. What I found particularly interesting was the examination of how culture and immigrant status play out in the lives of all the family members.

There’s also a very interesting side story that shows the young girls in the neighborhood navigating around–and sometimes making use of–the neighborhood pedophile who has a car.

Felin explores some very tricky areas. My only cavil is that the abuse is stopped when the abuser is murdered by his victims. Oh, yes, it is satisfying on an emotional level. (And this is not a spoiler. The book begins with the statement, “The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone.”) But you know that family is not really going to be better off in the long run.

Sigh. Sometimes there are no easy answers.