SEA CHANGES

by Robert Kotlowitz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 20, 1986

As in his second novel (The Boardwalk, 1976), Kotlowitz turns to the 1930's, this time around creating a Dutch-realist masterwork of period-verisimilitude that ends, energy lost, only with a wrap-up telling how-it-all-turned-out. It's 1935, and the Vogel family, in Frankfurt, Germany, knows what the future holds in store for them--the new Nurnberg Laws have just been put into effect, and, clear to all, far worse is to come. The two Vogel sons, however, will escape the future--Kurt, 20, by going to England; the younger Manfred by being sent for adoption by an American Jewish family in Baltimore. The reader follows Manfred as he saris for America, moves in with his new family (mother, father, and 17-year-old bobby-sox daughter Adelle), and experiences depths of remorse, loss, and homesickness that even he is only half aware of as he becomes acclimated to his new--and impeccably rendered--world. Sheer beauty of perfect detail holds the reader in thrall as Manfred is initiated slowly into sex, school (tenth grade), the mysteries of social class, the American language, money, and the looming abyss of adulthood--all against the distant backdrop of gathering war and the soon-to-occur disappearance of his real parents forever. Renderings of family life in Frankfurt are as perfectly done here as are those of family life in middle-class America, and each is played off against the other with the poet's ability to touch the heart--and the eye. The intelligent Manfred's inner life, though, gathers dramatic momentum only to a certain point (near book's end, he tries to return ""home"" by stowing away on the Nazi cruiser Emden but is set back ashore); and the portrait of an era comes to overwhelm the psychological portrait of a young man, with the result that the narrative limps to a historically exact but aesthetically patched-on end--with a peek into the future amid the deflation of platitude. But on balance, a masterful wealth of beauty and sorrow, looking back through a crack in time.

Pub Date: Nov. 20, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: North Point

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION