How the heck did this book get a 4 rating, not to mention "A Notable Book of the Year, The New York Times Book Review", it was awful and boring! When I read the back of the book in the store, I thought yeah, this sounds great, but it was far from it. It's about a family of Jewish immigrants that ...
To Frances, an only child living in McCarthy-era Brooklyn, her mother, Hilda, and her aunt Pearl seem as if they have always been friends. Frances does not question the love between the two women until her father's job as a teacher is threatened by anti-Communism, just as Frances begins to learn ...
On the first page of "The Book Borrower," Toby Ruben and Deborah Laidlaw meet in 1975 in a New York City playground, where the two women are looking after their babies. Deborah lends Toby a book, "Trolley Girl, "--a memoir about a long ago trolley strike and three Jewish sisters, one a fiery revo...
You know, this is exactly the kind of book I would normally hate: selfish middle-aged intellectual cheats on a good and loving, if flawed, spouse, and doesn't feel bad about it, makes philosophical observations while doing so. And yet, because this middle-aged intellectual was a woman, the conve...
A friendly, intelligent man makes a funny remark, almost for his private benefit. He thinks nobody hears, but I laugh. For a moment shared understanding exhilarates us both; then I go further. I feel a yen to place my hand on his bare thigh, to see what he’s like with no clothes on. I was single ...
Marlene knew something about life that Con’s mother would never know, but which Constance seemed to have been born suspecting, looking around in her crib for an eye to catch. Their conversations were about other people’s foolishness. “I know!” Con would say, pressing herself into her mother’s hea...
I love to see that morning sun come up. This shop was more dilapidated, maybe owned by someone so good-hearted he’d give money for any instrument, starving in there, worse off than Artie. The window was piled with scarred instrument cases, their leather stained and rubbed away: cases for clarinet...
said Lillian: an example of what made her wish to die. “Where?” asked Ruth. Ruth was a student at Brooklyn College and her sister, Lillian, was in high school. “Blake Avenue. Kosher chickens.” “Recently?” “I was little.” “What about them specifically?” asked Ruth. It was 1960. Their parents were ...
THEY SAID AT work, especially Ruby, who sat at the next desk. Mr. Glynnis was known to call them the Jewels. “I got tired of long hair,” said Pearl. Everyone accepted that but Ruby. “You always said you’d never cut your hair,” she said. “If I had hair like that, I’d never cut it.” Pearl looked up...