A Family Odyssey – Kantika by Elizabeth Graver

This is a beautiful, moving work of fiction that is primarily based on the life of the author Elizabeth Graver's grandmother, Rebecca Cohen Baruch Levy (born in 1902), and other family members. Graver incorporated family stories and photographs, but created a narrative that incorporates what she has conceived of their inner lives and intimate experiences. 

The Cohens were Sephardic Jews who left Spain as a result of the Inquisition and settled in Constantinople, Turkey. For several hundred years, under the Ottomans, they prospered financially, living a refined upper class lifestyle, and practiced their religion. After World War I, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the development of modern Turkey (which was declared a republic in 1923), their fortunes declined, and the relatively secure position of Jews changed. The Cohens lost their money and business (partly due to Rebecca's father's poor business practices and gambling), and they eventually were forced to move away from what had become Istanbul, and resettle in Barcelona, Spain, living in much reduced circumstances.

The rise of Fascism and other right-wing movements in Spain leading to the Spanish Civil War made life dangerous for Jews. Rebecca, whose first marriage was a failure and who became a widow with two sons upon the death of her husband, traveled to Cuba to meet Sam, a widower, and potential second husband. Sam and Rebecca married and traveled to Queens, New York, where they joined his mother and disabled daughter. Her sons eventually joined them and they had children together. 

The novel recounts all this in rich detail and we share in the author's description of how she imagines Rebecca's thoughts and feelings, through the following decades of her life with Sam, the tragedies of World War II, the loss of family members, and especially the challenge of caring for and encouraging Luna, Sam's daughter. 

It is a remarkable story, painful in many places, but ultimately triumphant. Rebecca must have been a truly extraordinary person and a true "woman of valor". 

This is the fifth of the eight novels I plan to read for the 2024 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and certainly one of my two favorites thus far. I hope to complete the final three by the mid-May deadline. 

Back Then – Desperately Seeking Susan directed by Susan Seidelman

I am happy to say that the 1985 film "Desperately Seeking Susan", a modernist take on the classic screwball comedy, has lost none of its charm, grit, whimsy, or subtle feminist appeal. New York City, however, is very changed since then. One could argue that the cleaned-up city is a safer environment, and that may be true – certainly it's much more pleasant to ride on subways that are air conditioned in summer, heated in winter, and are nearly graffiti-free, despite the overblown handwringing over the far-reduced crime rate of today vs. what we dealt with back then – but you could drop me (in the guise of my younger self) into the East Village that I knew back then and I'd be a happy camper. Familiar aspects of the city that once was – pay phones on every block, personal ads in newspapers, and storage lockers in the Port Authority Bus Terminal are integral to the advancement of the plot but they are all gone now. I preferred that tougher but more individualistic city scene than the more homogenized place New York feels like today. 

The movie starred Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, and Aidan Quinn, with Robert Joy and John Turturro in smaller roles. It's fair to say that the movie helped make Madonna a household name.

Arquette's character is Roberta, a frustrated suburban housewife in New Jersey who follows the personal ads she reads in a newspaper, especially between Susan (Madonna), and her boyfriend, Jim (Robert Joy). Susan is constantly on the move, living a slightly less than completely honest existence, and Jim is a musician in a touring band. Roberta, seeing that Susan and Jim are planning to meet in downtown Manhattan at Battery Park, decides to travel into the city and observe their reunion. 

A series of unexpected events occur that lead to Roberta experiencing amnesia when she falls and hits her head, while Susan is trying to escape from a unscrupulous man who is pursuing her after she stole a pair of what turn out to be priceless antique earrings. When Roberta wakes up from her injury, she believes she is Susan. Meanwhile, Jim has asked his best buddy Dez (Aiden Quinn) to keep an eye on Susan while he is away with his band. Dez mistakes Roberta for Susan, and the twists and turns continue from there...

To avoid giving any more away, my advice to my readers is to locate a streaming service or DVD of the movie, and prepare to enjoy!

Songbirds of the 60s – But Will You Love Me Tomorrow by Laura Flam and Emily Siue Liebowitz

Before the Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys and so many others, there were the Girl Groups: the Shirelles, Ronettes, Angels, and Crystals (to name just a few) and songs like "Be My Baby", "Soldier Boy", "Then He Kissed Me", and of course, the one that inspired this book's title, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". Most of the early Girl Groups came out of the New York/New Jersey area, with another wave coming from Detroit, at the very beginning of Motown: the Marvelettes, Vandellas, and then the Supremes.

It was impossible, in the early 60s, to turn on the radio to your local pop station, and not hear those songs. They were the songs you sang along to, and likely danced to, if not then, a little later on. They were songs of love, hope, yearning, and desire.

This engaging book is a chronicle of the groups, their members, their producers, promoters, and the songwriters. Some of the singers became household names: Ronnie Spector, Martha Reeves, Darlene Love, and Diana Ross. Some of the songwriters are also renown: Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Ellie Greenwich, Stoller & Leiber, and Holland-Dozier-Holland. Other figures like Dick Clark, Don Kirshner, Berry Gordy, and the long shadow of Phil Spector figure prominently. 

The authors interviewed many of the surviving group members and others who contributed to their records and their fame. Their backstories are individual but make a collective, though not necessarily cohesive, whole. All of their music is part of our history and a backdrop to at least parts of our lives.

The book is organized more or less chronologically, but also topically. It takes us through such historical life-shaping milestones as the JFK assassination, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War. Some of the most moving, and chilling, reminiscences are the descriptions of the discrimination and occasional violence that these nearly all Black groups encountered on road trips through the South. 

If you have an interest in the history of the last 65 years, popular culture, and music, you'll enjoy this book, and you'll hear your favorites again, playing in your head as you read along. 

Greek Triumph: Ask Me Again Tomorrow, a Life in Progress by Olympia Dukakis

Olympia Dukakis, the well-loved and Oscar-winning actress who passed away earlier this year at the age of 89, is vibrantly and fully alive on the pages of this fast-paced and fascinating memoir. Her strong personality comes through on every page, first as she describes her childhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, her teen years and first career steps in and around Boston, and her young adulthood and continued career development in New York. 

Her Greek-American identity and fraught family relationships shaped her character. She was rebellious and unconventional from the start, not the "good Greek girl" she so often referred to. She had a tense relationship with her critical mother and eventually uncovered disappointing behavior on the part of her father, a philanderer who badly hurt her mother and the family.

Despite many challenges and setbacks, she was determined and ultimately succeeded in becoming a serious and successful actress, had a loving relationship and marriage that spanned 40 years, started and for years ran a theater company with her husband in their adopted home base of Montclair, New Jersey, and was the mother of two children.

Her memoir, written with Emily Heckman, recounts the many details of her struggles and travails to achieve career goals, to find acceptance as an ethnic "outsider" in many circles, her struggles with depression and health issues, and celebrates her many successes as well. While she also describes relationships with others in the acting field, she avoids imparting celebrity gossip – there is not a word, for example, about Cher, her co-star in "Moonstruck", for which they both won Oscars, though she is listed in the many acknowledgements at the close of the book.

While reading the memoir, it was hard to grasp that she was no longer with us, it is that vivid and intimate. It is almost like receiving the confidences of a friend who trusts you to listen, but knows you won't judge her. She is so real, so down-to-earth, that you feel you know her, and only wish she could live forever.

I was fortunate to have a fleeting moment in which I shared a space with her (from afar). A friend and I attended an Off-Broadway play shortly after "Moonstruck". We had balcony seats in the smallish Lambs' Theater (now demolished, sadly), and looked down into the orchestra section, where we spotted Olympia (in mink) and Cher (in a white fur) arriving and taking seats in the front row. We were amused to see them sharing an aluminum foil-wrapped snack during the intermission – maybe Olympia brought it from her kitchen in Montclair – who knows? So normal and so just like the rest of us!

I highly recommend her memoir, not only if you are a fan, but also if you have an interest in theater, and the lives of unconventional feminist mid-century women. There's a lot to chew and digest here.

Obituary for Olympia Dukakis from the Boston Globe

Babe Betrayed: The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Melanie Benjamin's fast-paced read relies on a smooth mix of historical detail, believable dialog and vivid description. The "Swans" were the writer and later, media personality, Truman Capote's coterie of New York society women who hung on his every word as he flattered and cultivated them at the best French restaurants and swank cocktail parties starting in the period of his early fame in the 1950s. The women included Pamela Churchill (later Pamela Harriman, Ambassador to France during the Clinton Administration), Nancy "Slim" Keith, an often-married renowned beauty, and most importantly, the enigmatic Babe Paley, the wife of William Paley, the powerful businessman who founded and ran CBS.

The beautiful Babe Paley, who was always perfectly dressed, coiffed and groomed, became, over time, Truman Capote's closest friend, and the two were nearly inseparable for a time, despite her husband and his longtime lover and companion Jack Dunphy. While Babe appeared to have it all, her life was far from the perfection she presented to the world, and she confessed all of her unhappy secrets to Truman – later on, that would prove to be much to her chagrin.

Truman Capote achieved enormous success and celebrity as the writer of Breakfast at Tiffany's, (a novella that appeared in 1958 and was adapted into the classic film with Audrey Hepburn) but most notably, In Cold Blood, a crime novel based on a brutal true-life event, published in 1966. As an aside, I have to say that it was the most chilling and compelling book I can recall ever having ever read, going back to the early 1980s.

However, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Over time, per the many episodes described in Benjamin's book, Truman fell so far that he died in 1984 at just 59, due to his abuse of drugs and alcohol, segueing from the boyish beauty of his youth to the nearly unrecognizable caricature of himself I remember from TV's Hollywood Squares and the film Murder by Death in 1976.

As for Babe, she and her society companions were thinly disguised in Capote's "La Côte Basque 1965", published in Esquire magazine as the opening to his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. Capote used a mix of genuine and fake names but it was apparently obvious to those in the know about New York high society who the real players were, and he revealed many of the humiliating secrets Babe had entrusted to him. Capote quickly became a persona non grata and was abandoned by his former friends, Babe in particular.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue is a compelling novel that describes all this and much, much more, in great detail, with a bevy of all-caps names that will be familiar to many readers.

Later, Babe, a heavy smoker, developed lung cancer and died in 1978, aged just 63: a sad conclusion to the life of a woman who appeared, at least superficially, to have had everything.

Abandoned: The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

I found this subject matter intriguing, since I had also lived alone in Manhattan for eleven years, and often thought about so many people living so closely together but maintaining such singular and single lives. At times it was invigorating to be alone in the crowd, walking the streets on my personal quests, but there could be lonely moments when it seemed there was no one who was available to go along for a meal, a walk, a drink...and this was long before the Internet, texting or the social media we rely on today to keep us connected. Fortunately I was not the sort of person who was intimidated by a singular seat in a movie theater or a coffee shop, and as a devoted reader, I always had the company of a pile of books just crying out to be savored.

I got a little tired of reading about the author's melancholy experience of being alone in a strange city, but when she moved on to writing about the artist Edward Hopper, I was much more engaged, as I have always been intrigued by his work, which seems so emblematic of certain aspects of the city. I found the section on Andy Warhol interesting at first, but about a third of the way through, my desire to continue with the book petered out. I leafed through the rest, but nothing else really caught my eye and encouraged me to continue. There is a long section on AIDS, but perhaps because I lived through the height of the epidemic and lost friends, neighbors and acquaintances, I didn't want to revisit that horrible time. 

I abandoned the book after about sixty-five pages.

So, while I didn't finish it, I am finished with it. It will be back to the library later in the day...  

The Spirit Remains Strong: The Lost Boys by Faye Kellerman

After 26 novels featuring the same two primary characters, you might think a series could be getting stale, but I can assure you that is not the case with Faye Kellerman's latest suspense novel, The Lost Boys. Detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus are back, along with Pete's partner, Tyler McAdams, to solve a disturbing crime, and Gabe, Peter and Rina's foster son, who has family issues to resolve. 

These characters keep becoming more complete, and more nuanced, with each book. They've aged and changed in a realistic way – Peter is now looking towards 70, and Rina is well into her 50s. They've left behind Peter's high-pressure job at the LAPD and have already spent a few years in a small college town in upstate New York, where the crimes are fewer but no less complex.

The blended Decker family includes Peter's daughter Cindy and her husband Koby, Rina's two sons Jacob and Sam and their wives, Peter and Rina's daughter together, Hannah, and her husband plus a tableful of grandchildren. Gabe is in his 20s now too, and in a serious relationship. The changing and expanding family figures heavily in this book.

Along with the usual murder plot, Kellerman dwells heavily on where life will next take the Deckers. What lies in store for this unique couple? Observant Jews, Peter came late to discovering his heritage but has throughly embraced it, while Rina is as contemporary as can be while honoring her Orthodox background, keeping kosher, dressing modestly but stylishly, and spreading her goodwill and kindness everywhere she goes. Kellerman acknowledges how priorities change during life's stages.

It was thoroughly enjoyable to spend some time with these characters, who at this point, feel like old friends. I'd love a seat at their Shabbos table sometime...especially if Rina does the cooking.

 

Fair Maidens: We Came Here to Shine by Susie Orman Schnall

It was an interesting idea to set this novel against the backdrop of the 1939 World's Fair, and to include some of the most famous people in the popular culture of the time in the action, including Johnny Weissmuller (aka Tarzan of the movies), or as subsidiary figures to the story, Billy Rose (the theatrical showman and producer). There are some terrific historical details, such as descriptions of the architecture and events of the fair, such as the visit of King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth (parents of the current Queen of England) and references to political figures including President Roosevelt and Governor Lehman of New York.

The fictional characters bring the book down because they are somewhat unbelievable, and don't quite hold up in the intermixing of historical and plot events. 

Vivi Holden is a young actress, originally from Brooklyn, but beginning to make her way in the movies, who is pulled from a leading role at a Hollywood studio and sent back East to replace real-life actress Eleanor Holm in the Aquacade (an eye popping water ballet that was one of the most popular entertainment events of the fair). That idea is hard to accept. 

Maxine Roth is a college student in the journalism department at New York University (NYU) who is sent to the Fair to work on its daily publication Today at the Fair as a summer intern. We read that she lives with her parents and sisters in an apartment on New York's Upper West Side, in Manhattan. It's confusing for contemporary readers to learn that Maxine worked on a college newspaper called The Heights, without some explanation. Today's NYU is well-known as a fixture of Greenwich Village, but during the time period of the novel, NYU's main campus was located in the University Heights section of The Bronx (in the 1960s, due to financial distress, it was sold and became the location of Bronx Community College). 

The two young women meet and bond, but their exploits both separately and together seem heavy-handed and contrived. I truly enjoyed reading about the fair, and author Susie Orman Schnall has done a wonderful job of capturing its physical aspects and describing some of its exhibits and amusements. Hats off to Schnall for her excellent research.  

More Is More: Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

Part love story, but also a social satire of the ultra-connected, ultra-rich of New York, with a twist: the heroine is half Chinese (via her American-born mother) and half WASP (via her father).

Reminiscent of the super-swanky, over-the-top families portrayed in Crazy Rich Asians and its two sequels, in terms of the clothes, jewels and homes, Sex and Vanity goes deeper and further and skewers WASP and Asian society along with the social climbers who aspire to the top. 

There is a good deal of humor, extensive descriptions of couture and designer clothing, the homes and getaway places of the various characters, but Lucie Tang Churchill, the center of the book, comes off as a real young woman with real aspirations, problems and conflicts.

Kevin Kwan brings together inspirations from the work of Tom Wolfe, as in The Bonfire of the Vanities (on general principles), E.M. Forster's A Room with a View (for aspects of the plot line, and certain character names and personalities: Lucy, Charlotte, George and Cecil), and hints of Henry James's 19th century characters (the WASP Americans might be the modern equivalents of James's European gentry, and the Asians are James's brash Americans). The outrageous details, however, are completely Kwan's own, and he is a master of embedding them into the tale.

The novel can be read for its entertainment value, but is also a great coming-of-age story. There is bound to be an even more stupendously lavish movie adaptation than that of Crazy Rich Asians, and won't that be fun?

Sobering Lessons: The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America were a time of great immigration, with many hundreds of thousands coming from eastern and southern Europe. They were not welcomed by all, including many at the very uppermost echelons of society in Boston and New York. Some turned to the pseudoscience of eugenics to support their prejudices. These proponents of eugenics and the bigotry it typified were generally influential men of great means, some of whom were "scientists" – in fact, many of them had advanced degrees and wrote scholarly books which were later debunked. The author, an acclaimed historian, explores them and their "work" in great detail, and with extensive documentation. 

Highly restrictive laws were passed in the House and Senate in the early 1920s to stop the flood of newcomers. Outrageous quota systems cut the former number of immigrants from Italy, the former Russian Empire, Poland, Greece and many other countries to a tiny fraction of what it once was, while favoring large numbers to immigrate from the British Isles, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and other northern European countries with so-called "Nordic" peoples. 

The lessons of that period, roughly one hundred years ago, are extremely relevant right now, in a time in which we are fighting pervasive racial inequity and other inequalities, brought to a head by the presidency of Donald Trump, which is thankfully nearing its end. America, as we all know, has a great deal of work to do to correct its path.

As the saying goes, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I might add that those who not read or study continue to encourage ignorance. That might sound obvious, but it is all too true.

 

The Eternity and the Unlikeliness of Love: Find Me by André Aciman

An incredibly beautiful novel, full of the lyrical writing and exquisite descriptions that make Aciman's work so vivid. Each character is as completely rendered as in a Sargent portrait and every setting is as detailed as a Church landscape, though in Rome, Paris and New York. Even something as ordinary as the purchase of fish in a market takes on a special beauty.

The novel examines the nature of love and its complexities. The relationships explored are both romantic and familial. A young woman and an older man fall in love as the result of a chance meeting, and the woman cares for the everyday needs of her dying father, a younger man and older man create their own bond of love, and the young man, now older is reunited with the love of his youth. The stories are complex and interlocking, yet simple...they are about the power of love and how it fulfills us individually and in our relationships.

Immigrant Family Saga: Odessa, Odessa by Barbara Artson

First impressions should not be discounted: a familiar image appears in this book, facing the copyright page. The caption reads "Immigrants Arriving in New York City, 1987 Engraving". That immediately gave me pause because it obviously should have read 1887. I looked it up and found the image for sale: http://www.eonimages.com/media/dcea0dac-3eae-11e0-b7ed-db06f6888e9e-immigrants-eye-statue-of-liberty-on-way-into-new-york-harbor. It is probably available on other sites too for those who may be interested. Such an obvious error should have been caught by the editors or the author and was a clue to the rest of the editorial organization of this book.

This novel about an immigrant Jewish family has many elements – human interest, history and an overlarge dose of psychology, the last not surprising because the author is a retired psychoanalyst. The neuroses of the major characters are analyzed prominently in the book and that detracts from the impact of its emotional pull and adds too much of a clinical aspect.

The other problem with this book is the lack of editing. It doesn't flow in a natural way. It's not necessary for a novel to be told in chronological order, but this one jumps around constantly from time to time, from place to place and from character to character. That may be the reason the chapters are named and dated.

Characters tend to appear, then fade, then possibly return. For example, we read early on about Marya, the youngest daughter of the original immigrant generation. She is born nearly deaf and consequently does not learn to speak beyond unintelligible sounds. When she arrives in New York at school age with her mother, Henya, she is kept from registering because of her disability. For the most part, she recedes from the story, then reappears years later as a young woman who is actually able to hear a limited amount of language and also holds down a job. She more or less disappears again, and much later on we read about her death and how all those years, she took care of herself and amassed a substantial (for the time) amount of savings. Wouldn't it have been interesting to have had more of a story about how all that occurred?

Despite all of these shortcomings, I decided to stick with the book because I was interested in a lot of the historical and social details of the time periods it covered. In that respect, the book is very rich and appealing. It's not enough to overcome the issues that caused me to give it just two stars, but at least I learned a few new details about the plight of Jews in Czarist Russia that caused my own ancestors to immigrate.

Worlds Apart: The Sisters Weiss by Naomi Ragen

Naomi Ragen is an acclaimed American-Israeli author of many novels. According to Wikipedia, she practices Judaism according to the Modern Orthodox perspective and her writing focuses on the issues concerning the treatment and role of women in the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) and Hasidic communities.

For those who are not familiar, and just in the most general of terms, Modern Orthodoxy combines observing traditional Jewish practices with secular learning, arts and humanities, equal opportunity for men and women and being self-supporting. In contrast, the Ultra-Orthodox are strict observers and interpreters of Judaism, and do not accept many aspects of secular life or contemporary social norms. Hasidic groups are part of the Ultra-Orthodox world, but have their own very specific sub-practices, and are generally rooted by the location of their European origins and by the teachings of each group's leader or founder.

There are many interpretations, degrees and types of practice in Judaism, just as there are many Christian denominations and movements.

In this novel, a large Ultra-Orthodox family in Brooklyn includes two young sisters. Rose, the older, is an outlier and eventually breaks away from the family to follow her interest in becoming a professional photographer. Pearl, the younger sister, idealized Rose, but after her departure takes the opposite route, becoming even more pious and traditional. Because of Rose's choice they are separated for decades, meanwhile marrying and becoming parents.

Eventually, conflict and resolution occur when Rivka, Pearl's daughter, runs away and seeks out Rose and her daughter Hannah for help. Ragen tells the story from the points of view of all the major female characters and includes many details of Ultra-Orthodox religious life (many of which were unfamiliar to me). While some of the plot points are not at all surprising, they are beautifully executed.

The book is very satisfying, and a fast-paced read. There is a glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew words following the text. As a novel first published in January, 2012, it makes an interesting counterpoint to Unorthodox, a memoir published in February, 2012 by Deborah Feldman, who left the Hasidic world in real life. Unorthodox was recently adapted into a multi-part Netflix series which is running now to great acclaim.

Today, as I write this, is the eve of Passover, when the First Seder would traditionally occur. Considering that we are in the height of a terrible pandemic in which we must observe social distancing to stop the spread of COVID-19, coronavirus, many Seders will not occur, or will be held virtually, using modern technology. My hope is that this plague will soon end and next year will be very different.

Spoken and Unspoken – The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine

Laurel and Daphne Wolfe are identical twins who are fascinated with words and grammar. Born in the 1950s, they grow up in a comfortable home in suburban Larchmont, NY, and while they are inseparable, and each other's closest friend, they are jealous and competitive.

Their mother, Sally, and father, Arthur, are a bit overwhelmed by their closeness, their secretiveness, and their quirky fixation on language. With Don and Paula, Arthur's brother and his wife, and their son Brian, the family is very insular.

One day Arthur brings home an immense dictionary, Webster's Second, and a special stand to hold it. It becomes a fascination, and much later, a weapon that tears the twins apart.

Laurel and Daphne come of age in the Reagan era, also the age of AIDS, in an un-gentrified New York, with all its grit, full of character, and characters. They share a walk-up apartment in the then-dangerous East Village, find jobs, and then husbands. Their relationship begins to unravel once Laurel and her husband have a child, but it ebbs and flows. Meanwhile, the husbands become the best of friends, despite the tensions between the sisters.

Through it all, Sally serves as the third major voice in the story, and a uniting thread. As the decades pass, and changes in the family occur, her point of view becomes cleverly dominant, which leads to a surprising, but satisfying resolution.

Madcap Londoner Conquers New York – The Stylist Takes Manhattan by Rosie Nixon

A breezy, cheeky (it's British, after all) novel you can read in an evening or so.

Amber Green is a twenty-eight year old fashion stylist creating the window displays at London's Selfridge's Department Store. She's in a happy relationship with hunky Rob, a TV producer. Rob gets the opportunity to spend three months in New York filming a TV special that follows the backstory of what sounds quite a lot like the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (coincidentally canceled this year), and asks Amber to accompany him. Of course, she accepts.

The two fly off to the Big Apple, find a shoebox-size apartment to sublet in Williamsburg (Brooklyn), and set up housekeeping...and that's when Amber's saga of misadventures truly begins.

Without revealing the details, Amber finds legal (she doesn't have a green card) work, meets crazy, kooky starlets, a disgraced fashion designer, and many others. She gets in a lot of trouble but finds her way out.

It's fun to read about her exploits, her subway and taxi expeditions, and travails with Rob and others. Does everything work out in the end? Of course it does, but that's beside the point - it's the getting there that's so entertaining.

The perfect distraction for a night of insomnia!

Crazy Rich Asians, a film of the book by Kevin Kwan

I saw this movie when it was playing in theaters last year, having read the book when it was first published, and revisited it last night on HBO. I loved the production values – the sets, costumes, location settings, graphics in the opening credits and throughout the film, and the music. The story was a good one too, beautiful and accomplished Chinese-American woman from a modest background, a professor of game theory at NYU, and the scion of Singapore's wealthiest gentry family, working in New York, and complete with his own good looks, a suave British accent, and an abundance of charm, fall in love. Things are going along swimmingly until he decides to bring her to Singapore to join him at the society wedding of the year, where he will be Best Man, and to meet his ultra-snobby family. Until now, Rachel Chu has no idea who her boyfriend Nick Young is in his milieu, and it's a cultural shocker in every way.

Rachel was raised by her single mother, who fled China to escape an unhappy marriage and possible retribution for the illicit affair that made her pregnant. Rachel has been told an edited version of the true events, partly to protect her, and her mother has achieved her own success as the leading real estate broker in Flushing, Queens, the most aspirational of New York's three Chinatowns.

In contrast, the Youngs of Singapore live a lifestyle that surpasses almost anything the average person can imagine, in their private compound hidden from the public. Nick is expected to return to Singapore permanently and become head of the family business. The family may be fabulously wealthy and have all the latest accoutrements of that wealth, but they are traditional and expect family loyalty and obedience to the wishes of the elders. Male children, of course, are the most prized, especially the eldest son.

There is heartbreak, disappointment, embarrassment and a lot of revelation to consider in this tale. There is the conflict between traditional and modern thinking, old world and new world, male and female roles, self-reliance and surrender to the power of the family structure.

How does it all play out? That's for you, my reader, to find out. I am not going to spoil it, but I will say it's worth watching and considering its messages. And, I understand there are two sequel books and possibly another adaptation in the works. Congratulations to author Kevin Kwan!

I.M.: A Memoir, by Isaac Mizrahi

Hats off to Isaac Mizrahi for his candid, highly personal memoir. Mizrahi is a true Renaissance Man – fashion designer, cabaret performer, talk show host, QVC presenter, director and writer, who, from childhood, worked hard to develop his talents and has succeeded across the board.

It wasn't easy for Mizrahi to grow up in the conservative, insular community of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn. He broke every norm as an artistic homosexual in an environment that was highly critical of anyone who challenged the status quo. Having lived in Brooklyn for a number of years just blocks from the Yeshivah of Flatbush, the religious day school he attended as a child, and being a mainly non-religious cultural Jew myself, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for him from the late '60s into the '70s and beyond.

It is easy to forget just how different things were for the Gay community back in the late '80s when Mizrahi was a young man, where even in New York, rampant, systemic homophobia was everywhere. I worked in the fashion world too, and counted many Gay men among my friends, acquaintances and colleagues, and the horror that was AIDS decimated and changed that world drastically. It is sad to remember the deterioration and deaths of my neighbor just down the hall from my Manhattan apartment, then a co-worker and friend's lover, and every day the sight of so many young men who were once healthy and vibrant barely able to cross a street, and the constant obituary notices in the New York Times of both the famous and unknown (except to their partners, families and friends).

Despite that backdrop, Mizrahi has had a spectacular career, with great successes as a designer and in the theater arts. He tells all, or at least quite a lot, in this recent memoir. Listening to him read his book is both fascinating and excruciating.

It is fascinating and exhilarating to hear of his development of his many gifts from childhood onward, and his relationships and friendships with his clients and friends, who have been legion. He has known, worked for or made clothes for nearly every big name in the worlds of fashion (Perry Ellis, Halston, Richard Avedon, Anna Wintour...), entertainment (Liza Minelli, Barbra Streisand, Sandra Bernhard, Sarah Jessica Parker...), literature, dance, art and design (Mikhail Baryshnikov, Maira and Tibor Kalman). There are so many amazing anecdotes about the famous names in this book that should be for the reader/listener to discover for themselves.

The excruciating yet also enthralling part is his recitation of his painful childhood and family relationships, his struggles with depression, weight and insomnia, and his disappointments in his work, friendships and intimate relationships. It is impossible not to feel for him, especially listening to his story in his own voice. He has experienced more highs and lows than most of us would ever be willing to reveal.

For anyone with any interest in fashion, theater arts, New York life from the 60s onward, especially as seen through the eyes of a true insider, this memoir will keep you listening, or turning the pages, to learn more or perhaps to remind you of your own triumphs and struggles, whatever they may be.

New York, New York, circa 1958: Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell

It's always fun to read a book in which you recognize places you've been... and this novel, set in 1958 Manhattan, was chock-full of scenes set in familiar restaurants and bars, some of which still survive. For a time, the lead female character, Eden Katz, even lived where I did when I first moved to the city (no, not in 1958) – the Barbizon Hotel for Women, which was located at Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street. The author has done a good job of capturing the nuances of Manhattan life, as it was back then and remained until around the mid-80s, when the city began to recover from its slide into the bankruptcy, crime and blackouts that marked the 70s.

The main characters are involved in the publishing world during the heart of the period that was chronicled so well in the eight seasons of Mad Men. There was not too much difference in the way that business was conducted in the big publishing houses and the leading ad agencies. Men, white Christian men, made the money and the decisions, and nearly all the women were secretaries. Jews were barely tolerated, and African-Americans hardly ever appeared in such rarified settings.

Eden Katz came to New York from Ft. Wayne, Indiana with dreams of becoming an editor. Cliff Nelson is the son of one of those very successful editors and is living a beatnik lifestyle in the Village while he tries to write but gets distracted by the temptations all around him. Miles Tillman grew up in Harlem, is a scholarship student at Columbia and a bicycle messenger, and is trying to find out more about his deceased father, a veteran of both World Wars and a member of an honored African-American troop. How these disparate people intersect is the story and it is quite the page-turner, very much in the tradition of mid-century chroniclers of New York, with a little Herman Wouk and John Cheever, and a lot of Rona Jaffe, and perhaps a few others thrown into the mix.

It kept my interest and the movie marquees started lighting up as I read. It's a good book for a rainy long weekend, a little old-fashioned yet still contemporary... since young people hoping to make it big in their chosen profession continue to come to New York. I hope they always will.

PS: one annoying anachronism that should have been caught by the editor – nobody addressed women as "Ms" in 1958. You were Miss or Mrs. and there were no other choices.

Back in the Day – Mod New York: Fashion Takes a Trip by Phyllis Magidson and Donald Albrecht

I read every word, and closely examined every photo in this exhibition publication from the Museum of the City of New York. 

As a child and then teenager in the 60s and early 70s, I was very aware of the fashions of the times, and my first ambition was to become a clothing designer. While this did not come to be, I did become a fashion copywriter, and continue try to visit as many costume and fashion exhibitions as I can. I wasn't able to make it to this particular show, but this book provides a very in-depth look at the fashions of the Mod era, when New York took over from Paris as the center of fashion (with some challenges from London). 

All the trends and highlights of the period are covered, with scholarly yet accessible commentary, and photography that will command your attention. If fashion is your thing, and especially if you remember the fashions of the 60s and 70s (or want to learn more about them), be sure to take a look at this book, which should be available through your local library.

A Valentine to Another Time: At the Strangers' Gate: Arrivals in New York by Adam Gopnik

Just finished listening to Adam Gopnik read his tender and nostalgic memoir of his young adult years in New York with his wife, Martha. I was very taken with his story, as we are roughly the same age and arrived in the city at nearly the same time, Gopnik in fall, 1980 and me in early 1979. Gopnik is a native of Philadelphia, as am I, though his family relocated to Montreal sometime during his formative years. He has done a wonderful job of capturing 1980s New York life as it was for the young, ambitious, artistic and broke.

The couple first lived in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, about 50 blocks due north of where I lived in Murray Hill/Kip's Bay. I spent many hours in their neighborhood, which he lovingly describes as it was in those days, full of German and Middle European restaurants... the Ideal, the Kleine Konditorei, to mention just two of the best-known, small shops including second-hand and thrift stores, and many older people who were beginning to die off. Rents there and in my own far-East neighborhood were still low.

Gopnik and his wife had no money and first lived in a tiny room, but they made their ways and their marks. Gopnik ultimately became a writer for the New Yorker, an aspiration of many, achieved by very, very few and Martha worked as a film editor. Along the way, they moved to a not-very-glamorous Soho loft (before that neighborhood became the province of the very rich), and met a number of well-known artists, writers and others (I did not share this accomplishment with them, I'm sorry to say).

I love Gopnik's stories about the tenor of the city, the people he met, and the work he did before and during his time at the New Yorker. There is a deep, but sweet-flavored well of nostalgia here for a city that has ceased to exist as he and I knew it, and it was wonderful to drink it up and make a visit to those lost places.

I recommend this book for all New Yorkers past and present (and anyone who loves the city), especially those of a certain age, who knew the city as it was when we were young.

6 likes