Becky Bernstein Goes Berlin - Hardcover

Rahlens, Holly-Jane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559703814 ISBN 13: 9781559703819

Publisher: Arcade Publishing, 1997

Synopsis

Falling madly in love in the early 1970s with Ju+a5rgen Markovski, Becky Bernstein, a nice Jewish girl from Queens, accompanies him back to Germany, only to discover that her true love is not Ju+a5rgen, but rather his hometown of Berlin. A first novel.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

From an American-born actress now living in Germany, a first novel that offers wry and refreshingly upbeat reminiscences of life in the single lane--both here and in Berlin. Hostess of a local cable talk show, Breakfasts at Becky's, fortyish Becky Bernstein has just been dumped by yet another inappropriate boyfriend. Now surveying her apartment and her figure (her boyfriend's last words: ``It wouldn't hurt you to lose a few pounds around the hips''), she decides that it may be time to clean up her act. She'll clear out the 20 years of accumulated stuff in her apartment and also lose weight. As she does both, Becky mingles memories of her childhood, youth, and lovers in with a narrative of her present efforts to change. A New Yorker, and the daughter of an intermittently successful salesman father, she's a city girl who loves to museum hop and shop and is unfazed by dirty subways and weirdos. She admits to finding the Germans with their orderliness, respect for authority, and verb-impaired language deeply strange. She had first come to Berlin after college, dragged along in the wake of J rgen, an architect she met and fell in love with at the Museum of Modern Art. Once in Berlin, she lived in a leftist commune with J rgen and, when their affair ended, moved into the apartment she's occupied since. Between card games with neighbors, meetings with friends, and the celebration attendant on the news that a story of hers has been accepted by Mademoiselle, Becky recalls old friendships and her ebullient family. And while she and her apartment are in the process of shedding their excess, she unexpectedly meets her true love. Recollections that at times seem forced or superfluous, but the Becky who has them is so full of life and energy, so utterly in your face, that much can be forgiven. A lively and entertaining debut. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

After her ex-boyfriend informs her that he is leaving and that she could lose a few pounds, Becky Bernstein puts herself, and her apartment, on a weight-loss program. While Becky excavates the depths of her closets, drawers, and cupboards, she relates the stories that surround the various items she comes across. An old dress, a record album cover, a folding chair?all evoke memories that speak to the reader of the story of Becky's earlier life. Her career as a talk-show host on a local Berlin television channel, her passion for attending museum exhibit openings, as well as her search for Mr. Right serve on occasion to return Becky to the present. The end of the diet is also the end of the book. The story is funny and entertaining, well written, and enthusiastic. Recommended for literary collections.?Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1559703814
• ISBN 13: 9781559703819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288