“For ten days now the heat has passed 90ºF. There has been no rain—not for days, not for weeks, not for months.” This does not keep Gretta Riordan, dutiful and uncomplaining, from rising early to bake soda bread. Desiccated Irish transplant Robert Riordan, though, takes a look at his suburban life, wife and family and makes his way to cooler and greener pastures without them. Has the heat addled his brain? Is he doing the only sensible thing possible? When his children converge to suss out what Da has done, they have no answers. Meanwhile, all of them are on the run from themselves: Michael, a schoolteacher, has a wife who’s taken to sheltering herself in the attic, away from her own children. Monica, the favorite (“Not even her subsequent divorce—which caused seismic shockwaves for her parents— was enough to topple her from prime position.”), is on the edge of a scream at any given minute. The baby, Aoife (pronounced “precisely between both ‘Ava’ and ‘Eva’ and ‘Eve,’ passing all three but never colliding with them”) has been off in New York, nursing a very strange secret. In other words, no one’s quite normal, which is exactly as it is with every family on Earth—only, in the case of the Riordans, a little more so. O’Farrell paints a knowing, affectionate, sometimes exasperated portrait of these beleaguered people, who are bound by love, if a sometimeswary love, but torn apart by misunderstanding, just like all the rest of us. A skillfully written novel of manners, with quiet domestic drama spiced with fine comic moments. The payoff is priceless, too.
HERE COMES MRS. KUGELMAN
Pradelski, Minka Translated by Boehm, Philip Metropolitan/Henry Holt (240 pp.) $26.00 | Jul. 9, 2013 978-0-8050-8212-8 Pradelski debuts with a novel that makes flesh and blood of the Jewish citizens of pre–World War II Bedzin, Silesia The novel opens in the present day as Tsippy Silberberg decides to fly to Tel Aviv to collect an odd inheritance: An aunt has left her silverware stored in a worn suitcase. Tsippy’s life is fractured. A disturbing childhood haunts her, and now she feels compulsion to eat only food in its frozen state. She’s a curious girl, though, and wants to marry. Perhaps, she thinks, there’s a suitable husband to be found in Israel, and so she flies there. Pradelski slowly reveals Tsippy as the narrative unfolds, but the eponymous Bella Kugelman arrives as a powerful, original character, a woman who witnessed all that disappeared beneath Nazi nihilism. As Tsippy arrives at her hotel, she finds Bella waiting, seeking someone to listen to the stories of the past, of the town of Bedzin and its passionate, vibrant people. Says Bella: “Don’t run away. I have to talk to you or else my town will die.” Among those remembered is sly Gonna, escaping to Palestine only days before the Nazi invasion, forever pursued by guilt over all those left behind to die. 26
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15 june 2013
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fiction
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kirkus.com
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There is allegorical treasure to be found in Bella’s remembrance of the people of Bedzin and of life haunted by all that was lost. A melancholy yet life-affirming story from the ashes of the Holocaust.
THE LEMON ORCHARD
Rice, Luanne Pamela Dorman/Viking (304 pp.) $27.95 | Jul. 2, 2013 978-0-670-02527-5 Five years after the death of her daughter, Julia comes to Malibu to house-sit and is drawn to the overseer of the orchard property, an illegal immigrant who has his own tragic past. When Julia’s aunt and uncle ask her to stay in their Malibu home while they travel to Ireland for a research project, she welcomes the opportunity. Tucked into the Santa Monica Mountains with its lemon grove and views of the sea, the Malibu property has been a sanctuary for Julia her whole life, so different from her starchy, academic East Coast upbringing. Now it serves as a different kind of refuge—an escape from the memories of her daughter that are so entwined with the New England home she can’t bear to move out of yet can’t seem to move forward in either. Hiking the area woods and through the property, Julia runs into the handsome overseer, Roberto, and finds herself drawn to him in a way she doesn’t understand, until she realizes he has lost a daughter, too, during their arduous and dangerous trek from Mexico into the U.S. As the story unfolds, the arresting tale of Roberto’s loss wakes Julia up from the apathy she’s experienced since Jenny’s death, and, with her background as an anthropologist, she’ll delve into the moving plight of immigrants from Latin America as a whole and Roberto’s heart-wrenching experience in particular, while putting together the pieces of a puzzling mystery that may ultimately tear her from the first person to touch her heart since the day she lost her daughter. Rice here takes her signature themes of family and loss into the difficult and enigmatic landscape of illegal immigration to powerful effect (though readers may question the likelihood of the romantic elements of the storyline). An engaging and texturizing Southern California backdrop also subtly spotlights the struggle of land development and the environment as well as the fairy-tale atmosphere of Hollywood, and the book seamlessly includes details and plot points that both ground and enrich the story through its setting. Lovely and compelling, with quiet yet brave social commentary that enhances the book’s impact.