"I don't say the rules and rituals are archaic or daft, I give their esoteric meaning. A lot were difficult for me, but they work for other people.

"The loo paper, for example, is a big issue. It sounds stupid, but tearing is related to one of the 39 jobs involved in building of the Temple in Jerusalem, so it isn't allowed on the Sabbath. I thought I had shown the beauty of the purity laws. But it depends, of course, on what the reader brings to the book."

When she was eight, her disabled elder sister, Michelle, was sent to a home. From then on, she seemed to fear - and therefore to court - a similar rejection, but her parents never talked to her about it. Instead they were self-absorbed and fanned her feelings of... I search for the word. "Guilt," she supplies with some passion. "All Jews have it. We are all Holocaust survivors, even those brought up in London."
...Telegraph

The reason for Mann's anger and hurt - and her need to escape with sex,
drugs, alcohol and religion - emerges as she describes the trauma
behind it all.