Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

“This first novel by Jessica Soffer is a work of beauty in words.”

Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots is a book that should be read in one hand while stirring a steaming pot of Kubba Humudh stew in the other. Set in New York City, Apricots is the story of Lorca (yes, named after Frederico Garcia Lorca) whose Executive Chef mother is emotionally unavailable to her.

The voice in this story, Lorca’s voice, is one of yearning, a sense of unworthiness, a hope that she could be loved by her mother. A typical teenager might rebel against her family, but Lorca rebels against herself.

The story is told in the first person by Lorca and Victoria alternately. Lorca seeks out the help of a newly widowed woman (Victoria) and a bookstore clerk (Blot) to find Lorca’s mother’s favorite Iraqui dish, Masgouf; this to prevent being sent off to boarding school since she is suspended indefinitely from her current school for mutilating herself in the girls’ bathroom.

The most artful and well-crafted aspect of this emotionally stirring story is the texturally human characters that Ms. Soffer develops. From Lorca’s self-mutilation, to Victoria’s guilt of giving her child up for adoption, to Lorca’s mother’s aloofness, to Dottie’s yenta-ish-ness, to Joseph’s reticence—the characters are all vulnerable and imperfect in their own ways. They grow and transform over time with each other’s help and love.

Lorca’s friend and crush, Blot, whose name has to be an intentional decision by Ms. Soffer to describe Lorca’s relationship with Blot, figuratively and literally blots her sadness as well as her blood from seeping out of her.

What is curious is that the characters never really express outwardly what they feel about one another rather we learn about their feelings through their internal monologue and they express their love, their admiration or their contempt through their actions.

The Masgouf, a fish dish, that Lorca is trying to recreate for her mother, who was adopted as a child, is an act of love, is a metaphor for family, for the warmth and sense of belonging and well-being that food affords members of a tribe. No matter where you are from, food that is prepared and offered in love can be enjoyed by anyone from anywhere. Lorca seeks to gain her mother’s love and approval through the Masgouf.

Food is such an expression of love in Apricots that Joseph is hurt when Victoria does not please him by adding cardamom to his tea.

There is no shortage of food metaphors in Apricots. When describing her self-destructive behavior, Lorca says, “Just to rip off my glove and make little cuts with a pocketknife on the tips of my fingers, like scoring dough.”

When describing her mother Lorca said, “People always said, ‘I would never want to be on your mother’s bad side.’ Meat keeps cooking when you take it off the flame; my mother could turn herself off in an instant.”

When Lorca sneaks to spy at Blot’s sister arrival, she says, “But he wouldn’t see me. I wouldn’t let that happen. I’d be sneaky. Easy as tarte á la poivres.”

Lorca is an intuitive 14 year old and she persuades Victoria, with unwitting help from Dottie, to help her recreate Masgouf for her mother. During the course of the lessons in Victoria’s apartment they develop relationship of mutual admiration and possible kinship. They chop, they butterfly, they marinate. Victoria muses,

“Lorca salted the fish. The word remains played over and over in my head and took shape as something else: a glass container of leftovers in the fridge. I shuddered and kept my eyes on the study again, as if willing him there. Did you see that? I wished to say. This child was as sensitive as me.”

The two revel in the preparation of the foods that they love and know. They bask in the fragrant spices, fish, meats, lemons, almonds, honey. Lorca seeks in Victoria what she doesn’t get from her mother. Victoria seeks in Lorca the progeny that she gave up. Together they cook Bamia (an okra dish), Shakrlama (cookies of almonds cardamom and rosewater for when Lorca’s mother doesn’t feel well), and of course they prepare Masgouf after an unsuccessful try.

When Lorca complains to her mother that she never cooks for her, the mother prepares chicken in half-mourning for her. Black truffles are hidden underneath the chicken.

This must be a metaphor for the hidden, unspoken, unresolved issues between Lorca and her mother. Lorca is transformed and thinks, “I’d wandered the earth looking for her, roaming between the trees like a lost cat—even when she was right next to me. But something was different.”

This first novel by Jessica Soffer is a work of beauty in words.

There is no dead wood in this story; not a word is superfluous. Ms. Soffer is a master artist painting the hidden hues of the human soul. Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots is an intelligent work in the vein of Azar Nafisi where the humanity of the characters transcends cultural or national differences and illustrates commonalities.