The New Years

by Robert Lawrence Stine · 1995

Happy New Years is an epistolary novel by Maya Arad that chronicles the life of Leah Moskovich Zuckerman, an Israeli immigrant in the United States. Spanning five decades from 1966 to 2016, the story is told through annual Rosh Hashanah letters Leah sends to her former classmates in Israel. While the main letters project an image of optimism and success, postscripts addressed to her best friend, Mira, reveal the deeper, often painful truths of her life, including failed marriages, career struggles in real estate, and the complexities of raising children as an expatriate. The novel explores themes of identity, the immigrant experience, and the tension between the public persona and private reality.