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Sima's Undergarments for Women opens with breasts.

"Sima surprised herself by blushing at the round perfection of the young woman's breasts," it reads. "For thirty-five years, after all, breasts had been her business."

Over the next 13 lines, I detail them.

By this point in Sima's publishing career I've done lots and lots of readings: At independent book stores, cozy living-room book clubs, Jewish festivals, lingerie stores, and even, once, a wine shop.  (They served each guest 3 drinks, one for each of my main characters. If you follow the blog I'll reveal the Sima's Undergarments for Women wine pairings by the end of the week.)

I always start by reading the opening of the novel. Because if you read the opening, you don't need to do a lot of explaining first. You just open the book, and begin.

All the same, after all my years of writing Sima and now my year of reading it, I still find myself fighting a blush as I read through that long description of breasts.

Shortly after my novel hit the bookstores, a colleague of my husband's brought it home. Her son, 12 years old, was just becoming curious about fame. (The act of being famous, not the fabulous movie.)  When he saw the book, he pounced on it, excited to think that he knew a real author, that someone whose name was now on the cover of a book had been at his house.

And then he opened it.

And began to read.

As his mother describes it, she watched as he turned a deep pink. Then he looked up, and, in a halting voice, asked, "Mom, is this pornography?"

Sima is a deeply conflicted character. On the one hand, she is very comfortable with other women's bodies - it really is her business. On the other hand, she remains deeply alienated from her own needs and desires, engaging in an adversarial relationship with her own body and with her husband, Lev.  She can be angry, bitter, unforgiving - mostly to herself. She can also be deeply loyal, fiercely protective, and boundlessly generous to those she loves.

While I've yet to encounter another reader who interpreted Sima as pornography, I have been fascinated to notice how readers react to Sima herself.

"I hated her," some of them tell me. "The things she does-she made me so mad."

"I loved her," others confess. "She is so real."

It always amazes me to see how women interpret her - how, during book club discussions, they often argue over her, each camp bringing forward evidence in defence of their position.

Writing is a quiet, often lonely task.

Listening to readers debate my novel, bringing insight and argument into their understanding of each character-well, there's no high quite like it.

And Sima seems to encourage even reluctant readers to join the fray, blushing or not.