Out From Under stands is the sequel to Daniel Victor’s The Evil Incli­na­tion, although it can also be read as a stand-alone nov­el. Victor’s pro­tag­o­nist is Lev Liv­it­s­ki, known as Lar­ry, an Ortho­dox Jew from Brook­lyn who is expe­ri­enc­ing a cri­sis of faith after a failed tem­pes­tu­ous romance with Ital­ian Catholic Angela. Hav­ing grown up as the eldest of five sons in a close-knit reli­gious fam­i­ly, Lar­ry went ​“off the derech” and no longer observes the reli­gious tra­di­tions of his child­hood. Pre­vi­ous­ly a bright yeshiv­ah schol­ar, he’s become a smart attor­ney work­ing for a pres­ti­gious firm in Man­hat­tan. He car­ries a kip­pah in his pock­et, sym­bol­ic of his past, and is some­what of a social recluse. 

Hov­er­ing ten­ta­tive­ly between two very dif­fer­ent worlds, Lar­ry must com­mu­ni­cate with a vari­ety of inter­est­ing char­ac­ters includ­ing his very capa­ble Black sec­re­tary Shekhi­na (whose name means Divine Pres­ence in Hebrew), who lets down her guard to look out for him; his no-non­sense patri­cian boss; a seem­ing­ly uppi­ty young lawyer; and Rab­bi Meir Bischitzky, an eccen­tric lawyer trans­ferred into Lev’s stew­ard­ship from a for­mi­da­ble top law firm. 

Lev is con­sumed by extra­or­di­nary guilt about his first love affair and the gos­sip and dif­fi­cul­ty it caused his fam­i­ly. He refrains from becom­ing roman­ti­cal­ly involved with any­one until he is manip­u­lat­ed into meet­ing Rachel, a mod­ern fem­i­nist Jew­ish woman who is like no one he has ever known before.

A sud­den fam­i­ly cri­sis brings Lev back home to man­age the imme­di­ate issues and repair his rela­tion­ships with his broth­ers. He feels the press­ing need to some­how bridge his two real­i­ties. As Lar­ry is exposed to vary­ing shades of reli­gious iden­ti­ty, he even­tu­al­ly allows him­self to find his own place with­in the diver­si­ty of Jew­ish and sec­u­lar worlds. 

The sto­ry rais­es many top­ics, includ­ing hier­ar­chies and ethics with­in the work envi­ron­ment, diverse cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences and sim­i­lar­i­ties, fem­i­nism with­in reli­gion and the work place, and famil­ial and com­mu­nal oblig­a­tions. There is much humor and relata­bil­i­ty in the sto­ry­telling as well. The book is filled with col­or­ful Yid­dish and Hebrew terms, which are explained in the glos­sary. The parts of the sto­ry relat­ed to Lev’s broth­ers’ inter­re­la­tions are rem­i­nis­cent of the writ­ing style of beloved shtetl fam­i­ly sagas such as those by Chaim Grade and Sholom Ale­ichem. The read­er is treat­ed to numer­ous rel­e­vant quotes from the Tal­mud and oth­er Jew­ish sources. 

Ulti­mate­ly, Out From Under shows the read­er a world of shift­ing pri­or­i­ties and adjust­ments and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing ease with one’s back­ground and iden­ti­ty in the present and future.