FLOATING IN MY MOTHER'S PALM

by Ursula Hegi ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1990

The author of Intrusions (1981), a gimmicky but amiable housewife's odyssey, offers village portraits of gossip-embedded residents of a remote German town in the 1950's--as viewed and reported by a boisterous, loved, and loving young girl. Narrator Hanna Malter leads off with the story of her birth--when her beautiful, reckless mother, driven by rage at doom-saying, willed her to be born alive. Rage also will waft Hanna's grandmother to health, as Hanna's father refuses to accept her death sentence by medical authority. Meanwhile, jets of destructive passion geyser forth from time to time with direful results: a man, escaping a dream of death, is torn apart by his seven dogs; another man hangs himself--while his watch watches. Most of the town gossip Hanna learns from Trudi the librarian, who is a dwarf: Trudi possesses a cherished memory of one dark night by the river when she felt tall and slim, and it is Trudi who supplies the details of the wartime affair of the Malters' housekeeper--a love that resulted in son Rolf, Hanna's childhood friend and the one to whom she will give a first teen-aged kiss. There are also friends like Renata, with whom Hanna tracks a murderer, and Karin, who has a baby by her own grandfather; and, throughout, there are glimpses of Hanna's high-spirited mother, who will die tragically, leaving Hanna with memories of mother and daughter dancing in water, floating down the river as in a dream, safe and loved. In spite of stories of tragedies and trauma, there's the unhurried pace of an old village here--an ancient castle, memories of floods and a chapel-ful of old women who ""felt a timeless connection to each other""--by which Hegi links rather sensational episodes into a mild chain of hearthside tales.

Pub Date: March 1, 1990

ISBN: 0684854759

Page Count: -

Publisher: Poseidon/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION