Bee Season by Myra Goldberg is the most original, deeply intelligent novel I've read in a long time. It revolves around a highly neurotic but gifted family, all of whose characters are wonderfully crafted and formed by this amazing writer. We suffer the anguish of nine-year-old Eliza who unexpectedly is immersed in studying for the national spelling bee and jockeying for her place in the family, and the throes of her adolescent brother Aaron, who rebels and embarks on a spiritual quest that is destined to challenge the Jewish mysticism of his father that had never heretofore been questioned. Their mother Miriam is an emotionally vacant, brilliant lawyer who clearly is incapable of nurturing her children, and has a secret life that both repels and invites sympathy because of its human despair. And there is Saul, devoted but also blind to his children and their chaotic reality. This family is one that won't soon be forgotten in the annals of contemporary fiction; their intricate story is spellbinding and heartrending. ~ Reviewed by Barbara Morrow