ZABELLE

by Nancy Kricorian ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1998

Poet Kricorian's first novel offers a tender but thin portrait of an orphaned Armenian woman who starts over again in America but has a life there as mother, wife, and grandmother that's steeped in sorrow. In 1916, her father is lined up with the other men in town and shot by the Turks; soon after, Zahelle loses the rest of her family on a forced march into the Syrian desert. She survives, is placed in an orphanage, then later is handed over to a wealthy Turkish family as a servant. A chance encounter, though, allows her to be claimed by her own people, and she blossoms into a lovely young woman as part of a wealthy Armenian household. Her adopted family arranges a good marriage for her, and soon she's arriving on Ellis Island with her mother-in-law-to-be, ready to begin a new life. Not long after, however, her Bible-thumping husband Toros proves less than doting as he defers to his mother, who runs their household in Watertown, Massachusetts, with thinly veiled contempt for Zahelle. Meanwhile, Zabelle herself, pregnant with their first child, has fallen in love with a man she's met at the shirtmaking factory where she works. She squelches her feelings, though, resigning herself to motherhood and her unhappy marriage. Two more children follow; years later, the older son leaves home to attend missionary college, hears a voice telling him to have his nose changed surgically, and thereby severs his family ties--unlike Jack and Joy, who stay nearby when they grow up, offering some comfort to their mother. Zabelle's burden is eased further when her mother-in-law finally fails to wake up one morning. But when widowhood arrives after 44 strained years of marriage, there's no relief--only sadness. Zahelle's childhood is the most fully embroidered section here, with all that follows offering only flashes of insight into the full complexity of character and family that Kricorian might have made far more rich and real.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0380732114

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997

Categories: FICTION