When you part company with the life you’ve been living and have to start a new one, what do you do?

While trying to sort out the answer to this question—along with the question of what being Jewish meant to her—Jenna Zark began writing. This book was born of the journey. Jenna was married to the cantor of a Jewish synagogue and was trying to fit into a life she hadn’t anticipated. When her marriage fell apart, she felt completely unprepared. Because she moved from the East Coast to the Twin Cities expressly for her ex-husband’s job, most of her friends were from his synagogue. Staring down the prospect of being a single mom, Zark had to decide if and how to work with her former husband, now co-parent, to give her son a Jewish heritage. While the holidays and rituals in these pages are Jewish, the theme is universal and familiar to anyone who has ever experienced life-transforming loss.

Crooked Lines  is Jenna Zark’s honest and compelling story of navigating divorce, single parenthood, interfaith marriage, and losing parents while holding on to one’s humor and traditions.