Fear and Yoga in New Jersey
By Debra Galant
St. Martin's Press, 256 pp., $23.95
Comic novelist Debra Galant wants to be the Christopher Buckley of New Jersey. While Buckley satirizes Washington politicians, Galant takes on the entitled suburbanites of the Garden State. Her 2006 debut, Rattled, mocked their McMansions. In Fear and Yoga in New Jersey, Galant casts a hilarious eye on middle-aged New Agers as they pilot their Priuses in search of enlightenment. Stressed-out yoga teacher Nina Gettleman-Summer copes with her ultra-critical mother, her suddenly unemployed husband and her son's desire for a blowout bar mitzvah. Though it's a light romp on the surface, Fear also touches on love, Jewish identity and economic anxiety.
— Deirdre Donahue
