Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Goodman, A. | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
The tiny town of Kaaterskill Falls is where a band of Orthodox Jews and townies live side by side through the summers. In the summer of 1976, devout mother of five daughters Elizabeth Shulman is restless. Though she chafes at the confines her cloistered community imposes, she's well aware of the warmth and security it offers. Her dilemma and that of others is clearly conveyed as Goodman weaves their individual lives into the fabric of the community.
Author Notes
Allegra Goodman lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(Publisher Provided)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The quiet wisdom expressed in this novel and the clear lucidity of its prose would make it a remarkable achievement for any writer. What is perhaps most impressive here is that its author (who wrote the praised The Family Markowitz) is only in her early 30s and has already acquired the psychological perceptiveness and philosophic composure of someone of more mature years. The world that Goodman conjures hereÄa small Orthodox Jewish sect who migrate every summer with their leader, Rav Kirschner, from New York's Washington Heights to the upstate old Dutch community of KaaterskillÄmay initially seem exotic and remote to most readers, but the scrupulously rendered background of religious observance is the stage on which Goodman dramatizes the universality of human behavior. Beginning her narrative in July 1976 and ending it two years later, Goodman chronicles the small oscillations in the lives of some two-dozen characters. There are other Jewish summer residents, more secular and of higher social status, whose families came to Kaaterskill before the advent of their more observant brethren. The old Yankee families watch with dismay the gradual loss of their property and the town's identity to these strange interlopers. And there are marginal figures who stand between them, notably an ambitious real estate developer who changed his name from Klein to King and is scorned by both communities. With insight, affection and gentle humor, Goodman builds her narrative with scenes of marital relationships, domestic routines, generational conflict, new love and old scandals. Quiet heartbreak occurs, too. Elizabeth Schulman, the much-admired, calmly devout mother of five daughters, almost enjoys the fulfillment of her ambition to do something special with her life until her business project is forbidden by rabbinical decree and she gains a new understanding of a woman's possibilities and limitations among her people. The dying Rav sees clearly the limitations of Isaiah, the dutiful son who will be his successor, and the brilliance of his prodigal son, Jeremy, who in turn finds that his intellectual rebellion has left him spiritually desolate. On the other hand, Holocaust survivor Andras Melish breaks through his anomie to a peaceful contemplation of his blessings. Goodman conveys her characters' religious convictions with a respectful but slightly skeptical eye. Her tenderly ironic understanding of human needs, ambitions and follies, of the stress between unbending moral laws and turbulent personal aspirations, gives the narrative perspective and balance. In knitting the minutiae of individual lives into the fabric of community, she produces a vibrant story of good people accommodating their spiritual and temporal needs to the realities of contemporary life. She does so with the virtuosic assurance of a prose stylist of the first rank. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Kaaterskill Falls is a small town in upstate New York, summer home to Orthodox Jews who come from their tightly knit community in New York City carrying family memories and long friendships. They also carry a stifling adherence to the Jewish religion and obedience to Rav Elijah Kirshner, who is near the end of his life and struggling to reconcile his feelings for his two sons. The women of the community are bound by traditions that dictate their dress, manners, and preoccupations. Elizabeth Shulman, driven by ambitions beyond raising five daughters, opens a store with the Rav's approval and later runs afoul of the son who succeeds him when she violates a tradition. The men are not immune from the restrictive environment. Isaac Shulman yearns for a more learned place in the religious community. Jeremy, the Rav's scholarly but rebellious son, is haunted by his father's disapproval. Goodman, author of the best-selling short story collection The Family Markowitz (1996), renders a finely drawn portrait of an insulated community in this debut novel. --Vanessa Bush
Library Journal Review
In the mid to late 70s, a small, deeply religious group of orthodox Jews spend each summer in Kaaterskill Falls (the Catskills). Their emotionally powerful, physically frail leader Rav Kirshner guides their every move. Childlike in their devotion, the families raise their children, strictly maintain their kosher lifestyle, and live peacefully with, if distantly from, their less observant fellow Jews and the year-round gentiles. But even as children become restless with authority as they mature, some of the Kirshnerites question the Rav's tight reins and attempt a small but important degree of independence. As the Rav nears the end of his life, a power struggle ensues between his surviving sons, the obedient, plodding Isaiah and the brilliant Jeremy. Goodman (The Family Markowitz, LJ 8/96), a highly acclaimed (and deservedly so) short story writer proves herself to be an accomplished master of full-length fiction, defined by her gift for the subtle nuance. A quiet lovely study of the eternal pull of human nature vs. the desire to do the right thing.Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.