An alternately dark and luminous, wounded and affectionate portrait of a family in crisis.
A father’s boyhood experience of abandonment shadows his fraught relationship with his daughter in this novel.
Cherubin’s book braids together three narratives exploring the life of a Jewish family in New York and Baltimore from the 1920s to the ’80s. One follows Joanna Aronson as she cares for her father, Clyde, during his latest struggle with cancer while butting heads with her stepmother, Brenda, a cold woman whom Joanna suspects of neglecting him and even trying to kill him. Interspersed are Joanna’s memories of growing up in suburban Baltimore with her sister and parents in the ’60s, a life that seems idyllic yet seethes with subterranean discontents. Clyde, an English teacher, dominates the family with his charisma but undermines it with his affairs, including a liaison with one of Joanna’s teenage acquaintances. Joanna’s mother, Evie, feels trapped in housewifery and longs for the fulfillment she felt as a Communist Party activist. Joanna, though drawn like Clyde to the life of the mind, feels slighted because of his wish that she had been a boy. A colleague of her father’s seduces her at age 14. Threading through the story is Clyde’s memoir of growing up with his brother, Harry, in New York’s National Hebrew Orphan Home after his father abandoned the family and his mother placed the two boys there in 1924. It’s a Dickensian story of cold, hunger, loneliness, frequent beatings, and sexual abuse, but it’s lit with friendships and intellectual ambitions. Cherubin’s bittersweet tale is an epic and indelible character study of Clyde from frightened cub to kvetching lion in winter, with overtones of King Lear and an occasional queasily incestuous vibe. She writes in evocative prose that mixes astringent reality with glowing reverie. (“I sized up the three agents,” recalls Evie of a visit from the FBI during the Joseph McCarthy era. “Cold, smug, and bored. They could not begin to understand how alive I was during the war, how urgent and meaningful my life was thanks to the CP. How engaged I was with the world….I still miss those days.”) As Joanna grapples with her clan’s vexed legacy, the author shows how both betrayal and forgiveness can propagate across generations.
An alternately dark and luminous, wounded and affectionate portrait of a family in crisis.Pub Date: June 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-950154-15-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: The Sager Group LLC
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A captivating allegory about evil, lies, and forgiveness.
Truth and deception clash in this tale of the Holocaust.
Udo Graf is proud that the Wolf has assigned him the task of expelling all 50,000 Jews from Salonika, Greece. In that city, Nico Krispis is an 11-year-old Jewish boy whose blue eyes and blond hair deceive, but whose words do not. Those who know him know he has never told a lie in his life—“Never be the one to tell lies, Nico,” his grandfather teaches him. “God is always watching.” Udo and Nico meet, and Udo decides to exploit the child’s innocence. At the train station where Jews are being jammed into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz, Udo gives Nico a yellow star to wear and persuades him to whisper among the crowd, “I heard it from a German officer. They are sending us to Poland. We will have new homes. And jobs.” The lad doesn’t know any better, so he helps persuade reluctant Jews to board the train to hell. “You were a good little liar,” Udo later tells Nico, and delights in the prospect of breaking the boy’s spirit, which is more fun and a greater challenge than killing him outright. When Nico realizes the horrific nature of what he's done, his truth-telling days are over. He becomes an inveterate liar about everything. Narrating the story is the Angel of Truth, whom according to a parable God had cast out of heaven and onto earth, where Truth shattered into billions of pieces, each to lodge in a human heart. (Obviously, many hearts have been missed.) Truth skillfully weaves together the characters, including Nico; his brother, Sebastian; Sebastian’s wife, Fannie; and the “heartless deceiver” Udo. Events extend for decades beyond World War II, until everyone’s lives finally collide in dramatic fashion. As Truth readily acknowledges, his account is loaded with twists and turns, some fortuitous and others not. Will Nico Krispis ever seek redemption? And will he find it? Author Albom’s passion shows through on every page in this well-crafted novel.
A captivating allegory about evil, lies, and forgiveness.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780062406651
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.
Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love.
Bree is a friendly but standoffish bookstore owner who keeps everyone she knows at arm’s length, from guys she meets in bars to her friends. Mikki is a settled-in-her-routines divorced mother of two, happily a mom, gift-shop owner, and co-parent with her ex-husband, Perry. And Ashley is a young, very-much-in-love bakery owner specializing in muffins who devotes herself to giving back to the community through a nonprofit that helps community members develop skills and find jobs. When the women meet drooling over a boardwalk storefront that none of them can afford on her own, a plan is hatched to divide the space in three, and a friendship—and business partnership—is born. An impromptu celebration on the beach at sunset with champagne becomes a weekly touchpoint to their lives as they learn more about each other and themselves. Their friendship blossoms as they help each other, offering support, hard truths, and loving backup. Author Mallery has created a delightful story of friendship between three women that also offers a variety of love stories as they fall in love, make mistakes, and figure out how to be the best—albeit still flawed—versions of themselves. The men are similarly flawed and human. While the story comes down clearly on the side of all-encompassing love, Mallery has struck a careful balance: There is just enough sex to be spicy, just enough swearing to be naughty, and just enough heartbreak to avoid being cloying.
A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-778-38608-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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