Ladders To Heaven

Rachel Reuben's Ladders To Heaven is The Chosen for a new generation, with Potok's 1940's Brooklyn giving way to her gritty 1990's Crown Heights. Five compelling coming-of-age characters live out this edgy, push-pull story that juxtaposes ultra-orthodox Judaism with the modern, secular world-a story that explores the boundaries of love, sexual identity, gender, faith, racism and violence.

Lark, the wise-cracking teenage rebel, is thrust into this world, kicking and screaming, when her pot-smoking, former hippie Dad becomes a "born-again" Jew. Rachel, who has her private doubts about the ultra-orthodox life she was born into, dreams of escape. Jamal, known as "Rainman" is a black, neighborhood hotshot in whom Lark finds a dangerous, sexy distraction. Yakov, the grandson of Crown Heights' revered Rebbe, and his likely successor, struggles with the conflict between his obligations to his God, and his lust, body and soul, for childhood friend, Daniel, who pushes beyond the parameters of the community to find a way to live honestly. When riots rip through Crown Heights, we witness more than just the unraveling of a neighborhood, as the lives of each of these vivid characters are changed forever.