Beautifully gifted artist writer with a wry yet good humored, worldview and a penchant for adventure!

What I have liked most about the book are the memories of my parents who came from Europe. I remember my father of blessed memory recalled only speaking Yiddish at home. He was born in the US, but his parents came from Russia. My mother of blessed memory only could speak German and she was born in Germany (maybe Poland now).

I ended up not reading this book, but flipping through it just so I knew what happened to each character. The first character was great, but it fell away after that.

I'm a healthy chunk through the book (actually I am listening to it - read by Melissa Manchester) and I am enjoying every minute. Ms. Manchester is an excellent mimic of accents and that wonderful, rich voice of hers colors and adds so much dimension to the characters. I read in a review where the reviewer felt that each story became less with each Levitsky woman's retelling of her life and that the richness of her character diminishes with the compromises she makes. When I finish this novel, I will write more, but for now, having listened to Sarah's life and now on to Salome's life story, I am drinking in their experiences.
I remind myself that the first settlers in a new land seem so much more exciting than the subsequent generations only for the fact that the initial risk and challenges were so different from their previous life and where shared with family memories. As the ante is upped, so to speak, the sparkle of adventure and danger may be dimmed by an established family carving a place for themselves - even if they manage to go as did Salome to Europe. Socioeconomic strides have been made which alters what is ground breaking or even remarkable and more than likely they leave out of small details that are considered to be everyday occurrences so that doesn't get relayed to family members.

A lot of good wisdom

Enjoyable account of 4 generations of women and their influence on each other across the generations through their Jewish heritage, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their chosen forms of artistic expression.

A fictional Jewish family memoir (subtitled A Novel of Mothers and Daughters) begins with a gripping description of an infant’s death as he is pressed against his mother’s breast while she and others hide from Cossacks, and continues through the wrenching “differences” between mothers and daughters over the decades in America. So many quotables, I may purchase it just to pass along to Dana at some point , but I guess she’s too young right now. One favorite: “Mothers and daughters -- it’s a comedy, but also a tragedy. We fill our daughters with all the chutzpah we wish for ourselves. We want them to be free as we were not. And then we resent them for being so free. We resent them for being what we have made! With granddaughters, it’s so much easier. And great-granddaughters.”

I miss Erica Jong. It has been too long since I was graced by her beautiful writing.
There were many familiar characters and settings in this book, many of them way
more career driven and political than I have in my lineage. The Yiddish was colorful
and after 50 plus years I now know what "kine hora " means and it is not at all what
I had guessed as a child.

I had a lot more fun writing mean things about this book in my blog than I did reading it. But I finished it so that I could write mean things!

Whatever. This wasn't a total loss, because I like it when I read something and have lots to say about it. That doesn't always happen. So, two stars instead of one.

Now go read the mean things I wrote!

http://angleboc.blogspot.com/2011/06/...

Although I couldn't see myself in any of the generations of women in this book, they were realistic and I could believe everything. Very interesting. It reminds me of why I love Erica Jong.

Another EXCELLENT story by Erica Jong. I love how she seamlessly brings reality into her story :)

Excellent prose with interweaving tales. Enjoyed it completely