TAPESTRY

by Belva Plain ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 6, 1988

The seminal Evergreen crowd again, that New York Jewish family trotted out in The Golden Cup (1986) and here expanding into the 20s and 30s, each member with bonanza troubles. Wealthy banker Paul Werner has never been able to shed his passionate love for Anna, once the family servant, who bore a daughter by Paul after her marriage to another. Paul has married instead socially prominent Mimi, who will bear a stillborn child, her only and last. Mimi pathetically begs for Paul's love--which is essentially pity. Another marriage more of a blister than a blessing is that of Paul's young cousin Meg, who, enthralled by the sheer power of the man, married Donal Powers, a poor kid who made it to classy bootlegger, then eventually a megabucks international merchant. Meg is forced to produce child after child, until Leah--the waif raised by those noble social activists Hennie and Dan Roth--sets her straight, leading to hope and a new life. Lusty, busty Leah, widowed mother of young Hank, and now noted dress designer, surprises Paul with a jolly Parisian holiday before he attends to the grim business of rescuing relatives from Hitler's Germany. But it's in Germany that he meets that handsome, beleaguered widow, Dr. Ilse Hirschfeld, with a future of tragedy, exile and possibly love again. There will be deaths in war and peace and one terrible murder (could Donal be responsible?). Old ties are broken, sometimes mended. The readership for this one is as predictable as a Plain plot--in which characters circle on single tracks, reassuringly familiar on each reappearance.

Pub Date: May 6, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION