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... beyond simple conclusions about mother/child relationships, Zoffness’s work allows us a window into the experience of how we both inherit and pass on different parts of ourselves. She explores one son’s need for power and the potential traps of interpretation she falls into when trying to see his role-playing through adult eyes. Through explication of the history she shares with her mother, she examines the guarded nature of artists, and how sharing her mom’s creative traits means that she never really gets let into her mother’s world. Zoffness asks important questions about her body in particular — what it holds, how it is able to bring life into the world, and how she can create art with it.
... a powerful exploration of a range of experiences that many women face viewed through a Jewish lens.
Throughout her debut essay collection, Spilt Milk, Zoffness applies thoughtful analysis to everyday situations.
Fears, loves, doubts, and desires garner fuller significance through highly self-aware, highly intricate modes of retrospection and introspection. With heart and skill, Zoffness is also able to extend the topic of conversation well beyond the domestic, framing her own daily struggles with global concerns. Even amidst worldwide instability, each essay steadfastly relies upon a kind of paradoxical bedrock of uncertainty, honesty, and vulnerability.
... terrific.
A series of essays cohere into an evocative memoir. In her first book, Zoffness, winner of a Sunday Times Short Story Award, gathers thoughtful pieces on themes that include motherhood, anxiety, and Jewish identity.
Zoffness [...] debuts with a keenly perceptive collection of essays that considers, among other topics, family dynamics, motherhood, and her 'inconsistent' relationship to Judaism.