Fans will love the further development of the Elm Creek characters, though others may find the plotting a bit staid.
In this sixth of a series (a project that has spawned a quilting book and a line of Elm Creek fabrics), fans will find a pastiche of melodrama, female empowerment, and, of course, a quilting project.
Elm Creek Manor, the ancestral home of Sylvia Compson, has become a thriving school and meeting place for quilters. Sylvia is the guiding spirit of the operation, though she has the help of her eight co-owners, friends and confidants who run the school. This time, the story is centered on these friends, allowing each a chapter, though each quilter’s narrative covers the same time-frame and events. Sarah begins, secretly arranging a wedding quilt for Sylvia and her dapper new husband Andrew. The old couple eloped, and Sarah is asking former Elm Creek students each to send in a block for the quilt. Summer, the youngest member, then takes up the storyline, struggling with how to tell her mother Gwen (also an Elm Creek Quilter and a university professor) that she has moved in with her boyfriend. Given that Summer is almost thirty, it seems an odd dilemma, but when Gwen does find out, she’s livid that her daughter is sacrificing her independence to a man. We soon learn Gwen has problems of her own. Expecting to be named chair in her department, she’s passed over because of the seriousness of her academic research (or perceived lack thereof) in, you guessed it, quilting. The most charged chapter belongs to Bonnie. Her husband has changed the locks on their home, drained their bank account, and is trying to sell their condo to an unscrupulous developer. If that’s not enough, Bonnie’s beloved fabric store is robbed and vandalized, with the thief (who may be someone she knows) stealing all of the blocks sent in for Sylvia’s wedding quilt. Never fear, all turns out well in Elm Creek country.
Fans will love the further development of the Elm Creek characters, though others may find the plotting a bit staid.Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-3615-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.
A Christian woman and a Jewish man fall in love in medieval France.
In 1088, a Christian girl of Norman descent falls in love with the son of a rabbi. They run away together, to disastrous effect: Her father sends knights after them, and though they flee to a small southern village where they spend a few happy years, their budding family is soon decimated by a violent wave of First Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem. The girl, whose name becomes Hamoutal when she converts to Judaism, winds up roaming the world. Hertmans’ (War and Turpentine, 2016, etc.) latest novel is based on a true story: The Cairo Genizah, a trove of medieval manuscripts preserved in an Egyptian synagogue, contained an account of Hamoutal’s plight. Hamoutal makes up about half of Hertmans’ novel; the other half is consumed by Hertmans’ own interest in her story. Whenever he can, he follows her journey: from Rouen, where she grew up, to Monieux, where she and David Todros—her Jewish husband—made a brief life for themselves, and all the way to Cairo, and back. “Knowing her life story and its tragic end,” Hertmans writes, “I wish I could warn her of what lies ahead.” The book has a quiet intimacy to it, and in his descriptions of landscape and travel, Hertmans’ prose is frequently lovely. In Narbonne, where David’s family lived, Hertmans describes “the cool of the paving stones in the late morning, the sound of doves’ wings flapping in the immaculate air.” But despite the drama of Hamoutal’s story, there is a static quality to the book, particularly in the sections where Hertmans describes his own travels. It’s an odd contradiction: Hertmans himself moves quickly through the world, but his book doesn’t quite move quickly enough.
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4708-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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