Book Reviews
Carter mines her family history in this underwhelming novel that examines the lives and loves of Jewish immigrants in early 20th-century New York. Nine-year-old Simon Phelps is sent by his mother from Lithuania to America, where he grows up poor but ambitious on the Lower East Side. He meets German-born Flora Grossman, and their marriage and ascent into American success forms the linchpin for the familiar tales of immigrants vacillating between the New World and the Old. The interwoven stories of Flora and her sisters—Seema, the kept mistress of a WASP banker, and the somber Margot, who endures an austere life in post-WWI Germany—highlight the different paths for German-Jewish women. Meanwhile, Simon’s booming career in the advertising world is tempered by the grief he feels as he searches for his lost family, though his success enables him to plan a bold mission of salvation. Unfortunately, the narrative, while admirable in scope, feels too beholden to its source material, with the remote, speculative tone making this often feel more like a historian’s work than a novelist’s.
Publishers Weekly
When is a person a hero or just a dedicated family member? Carter tackles this question in her latest novel, a moving tale of two ordinary young people sent to America from Europe by their respective families in hopes that they would have a better life than their families can offer. Who could predict that Flora and Simon would not only meet and fall in love but that Simon would become wealthy as America's Puzzle King? Who could predict that the wife of the Puzzle King would dare to go to Hitler's Germany, bribe the American consulate, and sign affidavits of support for hundreds of German Jews? Verdict: Drawing on family legends (no one could invent a story line like this one), Carter deftly paints a panoramic portrait of life during the turbulent 1930s. The pieces of her gripping story fit together so neatly that they cannot easily be torn apart. Highly recommended. —Marika Zemke, Commerce Twp. Community Library, MI
Library Journal
Successful American immigrants rescue hundreds of Jews from Nazi Germany in this latest from memoirist and novelist Carter. The bulk of the novel traces the pre-1930s history of Carter's hero and heroine. In 1892, his mother sends nine-year-old Simon Phelps to America from Vilna, Lithuania. Despite years of searching, he never hears from her or the rest of his family again. A bright, artistic boy, he quickly becomes successful in lithography, window dressing and then in advertising. In 1909 he falls in love with Flora Grossman, who has come to America with her sister Seema. Unlike Simon, Flora remains in touch with her mother and younger sister in Germany. Flora and Simon marry and live happily; his thoughtful reserve and strong convictions compliment her more carefree, easygoing, conventional nature. They enjoy increasing financial success and contentment, marred only by their inability to have children. Meanwhile, sexy, complex Seema, who unlike Flora always felt rejected by their mother, breaks with tradition, allowing herself to be kept by a married non-Jew with anti-Semitic tendencies. When their mother dies in 1928, Flora and Seema return to Germany. Seema feels an unexpected connection to their homeland and decides to remain. She falls in love with a journalist who convinces her to convert to Catholicism to escape being branded a Jew. In the early '30s, Simon and Flora go to Europe with money and documents he has prepared to get as many family members out of Germany as possible. Carter gives disappointingly short shrift to this final act of the drama. Sentimental and rather slow.
Kirkus Reviews
top of page