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THE HANKY OF PIPPIN'S DAUGHTER

Name: THE HANKY OF PIPPIN'S DAUGHTER
Author: Rosmarie Waldrop
ISBN: 978-1-948980-01-2

by Rosmarie Waldrop ; introduction by Ben Lerner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2019

An unconventional but effective take on the legacy of Nazism.

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A reissue of a 1986 novel by Waldrop—an acclaimed experimental poet who was born in Germany in 1935 before immigrating to the U.S. in the '50s—which carefully braids a family’s decline with the rise of Nazi Germany.

Lucy, the narrator of this haunting, distinctive novel, is writing to her sister—or perhaps half sister—Andrea with family history much on her mind. Their mother, Frederika, married Josef, a teacher and World War I veteran, in Germany in 1926, but within months she was pursuing an affair with Franz, leaving the identity of the younger girl’s father uncertain. Beyond complicating the family tree, the infidelity has messed with everybody’s psyches, or at least that’s Lucy’s assertion. Andrea retreated into a convent; her twin sister, Doria, escaped to start her own family, and Lucy feels she’s inherited mom’s penchant for affairs. Lucy is trying to pinpoint the root of this dysfunction: The novel’s convoluted title refers to a dropped handkerchief that landed in Kitzingen, her family’s hometown, a symbol of the impact of a single arbitrary event. The sense of arbitrariness and dysfunction is mirrored in Lucy's recollection of German history. If Frederika had put her foot down more about listening to Wagner, might things have been different? Did the fact that Franz is a Jew further stoke Josef’s enchantment with Nazism? “Can I possibly isolate any one particular event as the cause of other particular events?” she writes. “Construct a different family myth out of one little sentence?” Lucy presents a cool intellectual facade, but the novel is littered with spikes that suggest an inner fury—most clearly in the all-caps section headings: “AM I TAKING MOTHER’S SIDE?”; “LATER, YOU GO INTO CONVULSIONS”; “DO YOU NEED ME TO REMIND YOU THAT THE NAZIS GAINED VOTES?” As the political betrayals in Josef’s world intensify, she creates a crushing sense of Lucy’s feeling burdened by family and country alike.

An unconventional but effective take on the legacy of Nazism.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-948980-01-2

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Dorothy

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
UNDER THE DOME
by Jean Daive translated by Rosmarie Waldrop

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.