Luminous with clear-sighted compassion for its imperfect characters, alive to life’s bitter disappointments and transcendent...
A tender, rueful first novel by the author of Useful Gifts (stories: 1989 Flannery O’Connor winner).
When she finds out she’s pregnant in the fall of 1953, 45-year-old Chenia Arnow is so despairing that she walks into the ocean off Coney Island. But the thought of leaving her two school-age children at the mercy of their selfish, irritable father drives her back onto the beach, where she’s briefly comforted by a handsome stranger. He proves, after Chenia gives birth to Devorah and they meet again, to be Harry Taubman, manager of a shoe store and everything husband Ruben is not: attentive, well educated and, when their intense conversations evolve into an affair, a sensitive, skillful lover. It takes Chenia years to learn that Ruben is also cheating (with two women) and one devastating minute to discover Harry is married. After a second suicide attempt, Chenia seems frail and defeated to four-year-old Devorah, but she will wrest joy from life again. Visits to the Cloisters provided a lifeline to this uneducated woman after the disorienting move from Brighton Beach to Washington Heights; now, with Devorah attending a Manhattan private school, Chenia immerses herself in the Metropolitan Museum. Art opens wider the intellectual vistas she first glimpsed talking with Harry, and some nicely crafted plot turns propel her into a happy marriage with a wealthy businessman. Devorah tells Chenia’s story, and although it takes a while to get used to a narration describing events that occurred before she was born or out of her sight, we come to understand that this novel is a daughter’s tribute to her mother, reconstructed and partly imagined from clues and hints dropped over a lifetime. Each character is a full-bodied individual, but towering over them all is Chenia, with her Yiddish accent and Old World superstitions, her ferocious intelligence and biting humor, the deep-rooted sorrow her children can assuage but not heal. She’s the Jewish mother Philip Roth never understood well enough to depict; Glickfeld gives Chenia her due and makes a vital addition to Jewish-American literature.
Luminous with clear-sighted compassion for its imperfect characters, alive to life’s bitter disappointments and transcendent possibilities: very exciting fiction indeed.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-40892-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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