Frieda Arkin

Such conflict recently over how to rate the books I read. So...for about 2/3 of this quirky little story, set against the back drop of the pain of WWII, I was finding interest in the lives of the characters. At this point a mystery was finally brought out to the light and I was ready to say the book had moved from moderately good to better...and then the ending. I was devastated by the ending, strangely all of the main characters ended in a way I was unhappy with despite perhaps happiness for the first time for one, maybe two, of them. I was sorry that only a side character was left standing clear for me as a likable person. This is most certainly a deeply observant work, with sharply defined characters and unsparing observations, which took me in emotionally...I just wouldn't say wonderfully.… (mere)

A young Jewish couple, Hedwig and Berti Kessler, married first cousins, flee Germany during World War II; moving to London, then New York City, then finally settling in Kansas. It is obvious that Hedwig is running from the truth of what happened to her beloved extended Kessler family in Hitler's Germany. That denial of the Holocaust and also the lengths she went to to escape that fate have tragic repercussions in her marriage and in her daughter's life. Realistic but with humorous passages throughout, this is an honest depiction of a couple who escaped the Holocaust but never healed from their losses.… (mere)