Until the age of ten, Abby Sher was a happy child in a fun-loving,
musical family. But when her father and favorite aunt pass away, Abby
fills the void of her loss with rituals: kissing her father's picture
over and over each night, washing her hands, counting her steps, and
collecting sharp objects that she thinks could harm innocent
pedestrians. Then she begins to pray. At first she repeats the few
phrases she remem-bers from synagogue, but by the time she is in high
school, Abby is spending hours locked in her closet, urgently reciting a
series of incantations and pleas. If she doesn't, she is sure someone
else will die, too. The patterns from which she cannot deviate become
her shelter and her obsession.
In college Abby is diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and
while she accepts this as an explanation for the counting and kissing
and collecting, she resists labeling her fiercest obsession, certain
that her prayers and her relationship with G-d are not an illness but
the cure. She also discovers a new passion: performing comedy. She is
never happier than when she dons a wig and makes people laugh. Offstage,
however, she remains unable to confront the fears that drive her. She
descends into darker compulsions, starving and cutting herself,
measuring every calorie and incision. It is only when her earliest,
deepest fear is realized that Abby is forced to examine and redefine the
terms of her faith and her future.
Amen, Amen, Amen is an elegy honoring a mother, father, and beloved
aunt who filled a child with music and their own blend of neuroticism.
It is an adventure, full of fast cars, unsolved crimes, and close calls.
It is part detective story, part love story, about Abby's hunt for
answers and someone to guide her to them. It is a young woman's radiant
and heartbreaking account of struggling to recognize the bounds and
boundlessness of obsession and devotion.
