Milk and Honey - Hardcover

Elizabeth Jolley

3.25 out of 5 stars

72 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670814555 ISBN 13: 9780670814558

Publisher: Viking UK, 1987

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Jacob, young son of an Australian winegrower, is torn between Louise, the slight daughter of his music teacher, and Madge, a married member of the local orchestra

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From Publishers Weekly

The sad Viennese in this novel fled when the Nazis took over their country and now live in a Gothic houseapparently in Australia, the author's homethat evokes Wuthering Heights or Thornfield. Jolley (Miss Peabody's Inheritance and Mr. Scobie's Riddle tells their story through the reminiscences of Jacob, a middle-aged door-to-door salesperson. As a boy, Jacob boarded with a family that was to teach him music while he went to school. His guardian, Leopold Heimbach, promised to make him "prince of the cello," and Leopold's sisters, Helena and Rose, were hardworking though forbidding caretakers. Drawn to Leopold's alluring daughter Louise, Jacob was in equal measure repelled by his ungainly son, Waldemar. While Jacob's equivocating romantic interests and the unraveling of the family's dark secrets are not completely satisfying, the melancholy elegance of Jolley's prose serves to compensate.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Sent to board with an old European familythe reclusive Heimbachsas a child, Jacob remains with them after his father dies and he inherits a good bit of money. He becomes an accomplished cellist, taught by patriarch Leopold, and is cared for by Leopold's eccentric sisters, Tante Rosa and Tante Heloise. The retarded son, Waldmar, torments Jacob; the lovely daughter, Louise, charms him. Jacob and Louise eventually marry; but his obsessive, burning love for Madge, a violinist in the orchestra, leads to tragedy and loss as dark family secrets are revealed. A sad, compelling story of family bonds, failed dreams, and twisted love, this is Australian writer Jolley's best work yet. Janet Wiehe, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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