Edgarian's tale of a displaced victim of the Armenian genocide and the impact of her experience on her daughter and granddaughter in America makes for a deeply affecting story, told with a confidence and lyricism that belie its author's status as a beginner. In 1915, nine-year-old Garod witnesses the deaths of her parents and brother as the Muslim Turks brutally murder a million Armenians, who they fear will otherwise fight with Russia against them. Orphaned, starved, and so traumatized that she has forgotten her own name, the girl christens herself Cafard, after the French word for melancholy, but is inadvertently renamed Casard at Ellis Island when she immigrates to America. There Garod/Casard immediately marries a fellow Armenian refugee, settles into an immigrant enclave in Memorial, Connecticut, and gives birth to a daughter of her own. Seventy years after her arrival in America, her favorite granddaughter, Seta Loon, tells how Casard fought with her growing daughter, beautiful, rebellious Araxie, who wanted only to shed her mother's terrible legacy, live a glamorous life, and see the world. Nevertheless, as Seta herself would eventually learn, ``the daughter assumes what is unfinished in her mother's life''; middle-aged Araxie finds herself rejecting her non-Armenian husband while fighting to keep her own elder daughter at her side. But Seta flees to California as soon as possible to escape Araxie's and Casard's pain. Will her grandmother's friends be happy for her, a calmer 33-year-old Seta wonders as she returns to Memorial pregnant and unmarried, now that she has used her foremothers' experience to create an independent existence? A highly accomplished first novel spanning three very different generations on two continents—and an unusually intelligent look at the American immigrant experience.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-42601-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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