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Dinner with Anna Karenina
Gloria Goldreich, 2005
Mira Books
368 pp.

In Brief
"And the worst of it is, you understand, that I can't leave him: there are children, and I am bound. Yet I can't live with him..."

Immediately the words from Anna Karenina take on a significance for the women who have gathered over good food and good wine for their first book club meeting of the year. These six very different women are not quite friends, not quite strangers but, bonded by their love of literature, they share a deep understanding of one another -- or so they think.

On this night they are stunned when the most envied and privileged member of the group announces that she is divorcing her perfect husband for reasons she cannot, will not share. That such an idyllic marriage could be so vulnerable mystifies them, leaving them to speculate about what happened -- and what, in their own imperfect relationships, would constitute the ultimate betrayal.

Over the course of a year, through cathartic discussions about their favorite novels, they reveal the burdens, bitterness and painful truths they have long been hiding, and in doing so, try to find the courage to open a new chapter in their own lives.

Written with a refreshing insight, Dinner with Anna Karenina takes an absorbing look at the complex lives and friendships of modern women. From their concealed rivalries with each other to their ongoing trials with husbands and lovers, award-winning author Gloria Goldreich's lyrical narrative captures their individual voices and struggles, with poignancy, humor and truth. (From the publishers.)

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About the Author

• Birth—1934
• Education—B.A. Brandeis University
• Awards—National Jewish Book Award, 1979
• Currently—lives in Tuckahoe, New York, USA


Gloria Goldreich is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of several novels, including Walking Home and Leah's Journey, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Her stories have also appeared in numerous magazines such as McCall's, Redbook, Ms., and Ladies' Home Journal. Gloria and her family live in Tuckahoe, New York. (From the publisher.)

More
Gloria Goldreich graduated from Brandeis University and did graduate work in Jewish history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was a coordinator in the Department of Jewish Education at National Hadassah and served as Public Relations Director of the Baruch College of the City University of New York.

While still an undergraduate at Brandeis, she was a winner of the Seventeen magazine short story contest where her first nationally published work appeared. Subsequently, her short fiction and critical essays have appeared in Commentary, McCalls, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Mademoiselle, Ms., Chatelaine, Hadassah Magazine and numerous other magazines and journals. Her work has been widely anthologized and translated.

She is the author of a series of children's books on women in the professions entitled What Can She Be? She has also written novels for young adults, Ten Traditional Jewish Stories, and she edited a prize-winning anthology A Treasury of Jewish Literature.

Her novel, Leah's Journey won the National Jewish Book Award for fiction in 1979, and her second novel Four Days won the Federation Arts and Letters Award. Her other novels include Promised Land, This Burning Harvest, Leah's Children, West to Eden, Mothers, Years of Dreams and That Year of Our War. Her books have been selections of the Book of the Month Club, the Literary Guild and the Troll Book Club.

She has lectured throughout the United States and in Canada. She is married to an attorney and is the mother of two daughters and a son, and the grandmother of six grandchildren. (From e-Harlequin.)

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Critics Say. . .
The vagaries of chance affect people in ways great and small. While reading Anna Karenina, a book club discovers the truth of this lesson when Cynthia, the golden girl of privilege in their group, abruptly announces she is divorcing her husband.... Gloria Goldreich's Dinner with Anna Karenina is a scintillating and magical visit to great literature wrapped in the everyday realities of women's lives. An extraordinary and impeccable keeper.
Sandra Huseby - BookPage



Six women discover their lives enriched and transformed by their shared passion for books in Goldreich's delightful tribute to friendship. Cynthia, Jen, Elizabeth, Trish, Rina and Donna participate in an informal Manhattan book club that exposes "their dreams, their deepest fears, their brightest hopes" while they discuss great literature and enjoy wonderful meals. The group's tranquility shatters when Cynthia, the most glamorous of the six, announces before an Anna Karenina discussion that she's divorcing her husband, Eric, a highly successful documentary filmmaker. Cynthia refuses to explain why she suddenly can no longer live with Eric, leaving her friends shocked and curious. For a whole year, as the other five endlessly speculate about Cynthia and face their own personal problems, the women probe the riches of authors like Tolstoy, Flaubert, Plath and Nabokov. In the end, their emotional support of each other grows as they learn to understand and forgive each other's weaknesses. Goldreich's novel Leah's Journey won the National Jewish Book Award for fiction. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Publishers Weekly



A portrait of female friendship bound together with books, from the author of Walking Home (2005). During their first meeting of the year, a reading group composed of professional women in Manhattan discovers that one of their number is leaving her husband. As the story progresses, they come to terms with this dilemma and other personal troubles as they gather to talk about books and eat. For a group that prides itself on a passion for literature and intellectual rigor, this reading sorority tends to favor the superficial over real criticism. Discussions of, say, the writer's craft or cultural context generally lose out to chatty conversations about plot and self-referential character analysis-these women use incidents in the life of Emma Bovary to share anecdotes from their own, and they talk about how much they are like or unlike Anna Karenina. Each character's backstory unfolds in chunks of exposition inspired by Lolita and The Bell Jar, and the connections between the story being read and the stories being relived are always facile. The impoverished graduate student, for example, always talks about money. When someone mentions jewelry, each woman touches a bracelet or an earring and considers its significance in her life. Indeed, material culture is present here always, as if things are signifiers of the people who own them. When it is revealed that they are not, this is meant to shock: Who would have guessed that someone as well-dressed as Cynthia could be unhappy? The ensemble cast offers a host of vaguely drawn types-a wealthy department-store executive, an overworked psychologist, a guidance counselor with an autistic son and an abusive husband. Reading groups who want to readabout reading groups will have something to pick up after they've finished The Jane Austen Book Club. Dreary, plodding and slightly pretentious-women's fiction of the most uninspired, uninspiring kind.
Kirkus Reviews


Readers Say...
(Occasionally, when few critical reviews are available, we include helpful reviews by Barnes & Noble customers.)


Kind of disappointing: The premise of this book was so promising to me, so I just had to read it. I had a hard time really liking the characters, and I was really disappointed in the main character who made her husband leave. I found her shallow and proud. I kept reading waiting for it to get better, and it just didn't.
Reviewer - Priscilla, an avid reader, 04/15/2006



Eighth Grade Reading Level: The premise of the book is interesting and it starts out well. The various women are introduced immediately and the characterizations are distinctly drawn. However, after the third chapter the 'secret' becomes tiresome and wrung-out to the point that the reader doesn't care any more. The book needs more complex relationships and more subtle dialog. The writing throughout the book is too repetitive and dependent on the mechanics of the moment and uninteresting descriptions of food, clothing, furniture, and various miscellany. In an attempt to make the women's lives sound busy and cutting edge, Goldreich writes, 'the women whip out their pocket calendars and PDAs,' which sounds silly and lacks authenticity. I struggled to finish the last chapter, where of course, everything was wrapped up into a nice little package. While I enjoyed the discussions of the books in the 'book club,' I found myself wishing I were reading one of them, instead of Dinner with Anna Karenina.
Reviewer - 3/16/06



A powerful relationship drama: The six women who make up the book club meet monthly to discuss a chosen tale. Trish is married to Jason Donna has two men in her life Rina is a single mom Jen is married to Ian, Elizabeth has Bert. However, all envy the sixth member Cynthia. She has a great job as marketing director of Nightingale’s Boutique department Store her sensitive husband Eric is a renowned documentary filmmaker and they have two perfect twin children. Thus the other five are stunned when Cynthia informs them that she is divorcing Eric, but she refuses to provide reasons beyond that she cannot forgive him. The other five speculate on what he did, but Cynthia remains stubborn refusing to divulge her secret. After a time of failed sleuthing, each of the other five begins to look inward at their own flawed relationships wondering what they can do to strengthen them. No one knows why the perfect marriage dissolved during their Dinner with Anna Karenina, but no one wants to follow suit. Once again the great Gloria Goldreich provides a powerful relationship drama starring a wounded woman who feels so betrayed that she no longer trusts the man she loves. Readers will join the quintet trying to learn what he did and how can he atone for his transgression that destroyed their marriage. However, the key to this deep tale is the ensemble cast that comes across as differing individuals with varying needs, worrying about their own relationships with loved ones. Fans of powerful character studies will want to read this strong look at trust lost.
Reviewer - Harriet Klausner, 11/15/05

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Book Club Discussion Questions

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