Lasting Treasures - Softcover

Julie Ellis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006490174 ISBN 13: 9780006490173

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995

Synopsis

Russian refugee Viktoria Gunsburg comes to Virginia as the bride of an American serviceman, but her marriage begins to disintegrate in the face of his wealthy family's disapproval and betrayal. Reprint. K.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Cigarettes and Jews in the American South are the stuff of this romantic family saga--from the veteran author of Trespassing Hearts (1992), etc. The story here--hardly sui generis--features an intrepid heroine, Viktoria Gunsburg, who's treated badly by the fates: at 15, she's forced to leave her loving mama and papa in Petrograd to avoid the savageries of the Revolution. Before she does, though, her father tells her not to let on that she's Jewish. Vicky lands in Paris, where, as a chambermaid at the Hotel Crillon, she meets a handsome American officer, Gary Barton, scion of a big Richmond tobacco company: Gary's dark secret is that he wants to be a composer instead of working for the Barton weed company, although once he weds Vicky and takes her home, he caves in and does the latter. Vicky finds herself very much a stranger in Old Dominion, until she produces two male heirs (dear Michael and bad seed Adam), assumes control of the company after big daddy Daniel Barton has a stroke, and locates a small enclave of Jews in Richmond. But life is long, and more troubles come--including Gary's suicide, Michael's death in WW II, and Vicky's slow-growing awareness that cigarettes are coffin nails. She'll do battle with the whole Barton tribe over the Surgeon General's concerns, then wind up happy at last--as apparently all Ellis heroines must. Flatly written, unsubtle saga-by-rote. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

This unconvincing saga stretches perilously thin in a seeming effort to touch all bases--historical, political and cultural--as it follows Viktoria Gunsburg's rise from penniless Russian refugee to top corporate executive. Having fled the 1917 revolution, 16-year-old Viktoria meets and marries Gary Barton, heir to a prospering Virginia tobacco business. She quickly adapts to American ways but, remembering the pogroms and obeying her bigoted father-in-law, she conceals her Jewish origins--a decision she will later deeply regret. In an otherwise cliched plot, the theme of maintaining a Jewish identity in an intolerant environment is well-developed. Vicky evolves into a shrewd, determined businesswoman who builds the tobacco company into a major national concern, bringing the quarrelsome Barton family enormous wealth. Alarmed at Vicky's growing concerns about cigarettes' link to cancer, however, her relatives plot to gain control, leading to an unbelievable and melodramatic conclusion of epic proportions. Ellis ( Trespassing Hearts ) attempts to shoehorn every major 20th-century event into the story, and as Vicky's children and grandchildren proliferate, fast-paced references to the Jazz Age, the Depression and WW II cause the decades to spin by in a superficial blur. Two-dimensional characters further weaken this diluted and essentially implausible tale.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0006490174
• ISBN 13: 9780006490173
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528