Cam­my Adler is aim­less. She moved to New York City to make it as a writer, but, on the cusp of turn­ing thir­ty, she has lit­tle to show for it. She’s stuck in dead-end temp jobs with many, many unfin­ished man­u­scripts and projects as detri­tus in her wake. Her home is a base­ment apart­ment in Queens that should prob­a­bly be con­demned, and her for­mer boyfriend broke up with her after she cheat­ed on him and con­fessed. When her father — the man who was the glue of her fam­i­ly, and her cen­ter — sud­den­ly dies, Cam­my is cast even fur­ther adrift. 

Cam­my sul­len­ly heads home to New Jer­sey to sit shi­va, the Jew­ish peri­od of mourn­ing that lasts for sev­en days. Fac­ing her griev­ing moth­er and the ever-present mem­o­ries of her dad, Cam­my is forced to acknowl­edge who she was when she left Riv­er Hill, and how lit­tle has changed — both in Riv­er Hill and with­in her­self. As the week drags on, Cam­my becomes more and more unglued. She has knock-down, drag-out fights with her moth­er, skips shi­va to smoke weed, man­ages to get arrest­ed, and absconds to Atlantic City to gam­ble away her small sav­ings with her best friend Fran. Will Cam­my ever be able to face her deep grief, or will she self-destruct in her hometown?

Cary Git­ter deft­ly nav­i­gates the read­er through the com­plex, com­pet­ing emo­tions that accom­pa­ny sit­ting shi­va and mourn­ing loved ones. Filled with delight­ful char­ac­ters, the dark­ly fun­ny and beau­ti­ful­ly com­pas­sion­ate Cam­my Sit­ting Shi­va is a reflec­tion on who you are, and who you want to be. It’s a tes­ta­ment to the intri­ca­cies of fam­i­ly and friend­ship, and the his­to­ry that comes with going home again.