That Year of Our War - Softcover

Goldreich, Gloria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568950810 ISBN 13: 9781568950815

Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc, 1994

Synopsis

The momentous year of 1944 is teenaged Sarah's year of starting life anew, as she copes with her mother's death, her father's army duty in Europe, and first love among her Brooklyn relatives

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

In some of her other novels concerning heroic and/or striving women (Mothers, 1989, etc.), Goldreich's characters lean toward the floridly sentimental in word and deed. There's no lack of emotion in this story of WW II's effect on a large, cohesive Jewish family in Brooklyn, but its pervasive, touching warmth never seems overdone. ``I loved being surrounded by family....It was a bastion against loneliness. It was a fortress of kindness in a world beset by cruelty,'' comments Sharon Grossberg, who loses her mother to leukemia on D-Day--''Death Day'' to the 15-year-old girl. In the year that follows, living in a busy household of loving relatives, Sharon works through her grief and worries about her father, a doctor stationed overseas. Cherished but isolated, Sharon observes and keeps secrets: the philandering of an uncle; the pregnancy of lovely new bride Cousin Beth, who insisted on the joys of marriage, however brief; an aunt's tragic past; the quiet rebellion of a musical prodigy. She participates in the bittersweet joy of a wedding in hard times, family feasts, music and the cacophony of arguments in crowded living rooms, visits to an aunt's home in Woodstock, New York, where winter brings snow and sleds, summer a drift of artists. She gains some perspective on her own sorrows from the tales of the refugees who gather at her grandfather's home on Saturdays, keening for loved ones left behind in Europe to suffer Hitler's persecutions. A treat for Goldreich's followers, particularly those who remember that year themselves. (Literary Guild alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Goldreich's ( Years of Dreams ) deeply moving novel views events of the last year of WW II through the eyes of a 15-year-old American girl, narrator Sharon Grossberg, who is exceptionally perceptive, analytical and vulnerable. The heart of the story lies in Sharon's evolving relationship with her mishpacha (extended family), who, after her mother dies of leukemia, resolve that she live with an aunt in Brooklyn. (Sharon's father, a doctor, is serving somewhere in Europe and the absence of his letters is a constant source of anxiety to her.) The young woman spends the summer of 1944 in Woodstock with another aunt and uncle, and her introduction to their offbeat, intellectual and creative friends adds a new dimension to her expanding world. Goldreich again brings a sense of immediacy to the Jewish experience as Sharon's perceptions of the cycles of life--a birth, a wedding, death--are evoked in rich detail, made poignant without being maudlin. The ordinary life of the family, with their Shabbat dinners and various holiday preparations, is tinged with growing horror as they learn of the extermination of relatives in Europe. Sharon's evaluation of a complex adult world is rendered with skill and power.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1568950810
• ISBN 13: 9781568950815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 459