No Buts, Becky! is a period novel set in the East End of London in 1908. It describes the tenement life of a Yiddish-speaking Russian Jewish family who, like many others, escaped to England from the widespread killing of innocent Jews, known as pogroms.
The heroine, eleven-year-old Becky, and her young brother Yossie, live with their widowed father, Jacob Feldman, and their elderly grandmother Bubbe. Becky is shocked to discover that, following the custom of the time, her father has hired a matchmaker to find him a new wife. Becky takes an instant dislike to Mrs Haffner – the prospective ‘new mother’ – and is determined at all costs to prevent the match from taking place. She concocts several reckless and often hilariously brilliant schemes in order to wreck her father’s marriage plans. At the end of each chapter, Becky confides the secrets of her heart in imaginary letters to her late mother.
The heroine, eleven-year-old Becky, and her young brother Yossie, live with their widowed father, Jacob Feldman, and their elderly grandmother Bubbe. Becky is shocked to discover that, following the custom of the time, her father has hired a matchmaker to find him a new wife. Becky takes an instant dislike to Mrs Haffner – the prospective ‘new mother’ – and is determined at all costs to prevent the match from taking place. She concocts several reckless and often hilariously brilliant schemes in order to wreck her father’s marriage plans. At the end of each chapter, Becky confides the secrets of her heart in imaginary letters to her late mother.
