Book
The houseguest : a novel / Kim Brooks.
A story about identity, family, and the decisions that define who we will become.
It is the summer of 1941 and Abe Auer, a Russian immigrant and small-town junkyard owner, has become disenchanted with his life. So when his friend Max Hoffman, a local rabbi with a dark past, asks Abe to take in a European refugee, he agrees, unaware that the woman coming to live with him is a volatile and alluring actress named Ana Beidler. Ana regales the Auer family with tales of her lost stardom and charms and mystifies Abe with her glamour and unabashed sexuality, forcing him to confront his own desire as well as the ghost of his dead brother. As news filters out of Europe, American Jews struggle to make sense of the atrocities. Some want to bury their heads in the sand while others want to create a Jewish army that would fight Hitler and promote bold, wide-spread rescue initiatives. And when a popular Manhattan synagogue is burned to the ground, our characters begin to feel the drumbeat of war is marching ever closer to home. Set on the eve of America's involvement in World War II, The Houseguest examines a little-known aspect of the war and highlights the network of organizations seeking to help Jews abroad, just as masses of people seeking to escape Europe are turned away from American shores. It moves seamlessly from the Yiddish theaters of Second Avenue to the junkyards of Utica to the covert world of political activists, Jewish immigrants, and the stars and discontents of New York's Yiddish stage.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781619026056 (hardcover) :
- Physical Description: 369 pages ; 24 cm
- Publisher: Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2016.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Immigrants > Fiction. Russians > United States > Fiction. Jews > United States > Fiction. Refugees > Fiction. Actresses > Fiction. World War, 1939-1945 > United States > Fiction. World War, 1939-1945 > Refugees > Fiction. New York (State) > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Historical fiction. |
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- 5 of 5 copies available at Sitka.
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- 0 current holds with 0 total copies.
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nelson Public Library | F BRO (Text) | 3514830025502 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Pemberton and District Public Library | F BRO (Text) | 31894000448661 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Salt Spring Island Public Library | FIC BRO (Text) | 33123009514648 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Squamish Public Library | F BRO (Text) | 33110003211529 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| 100 Mile House Branch | BRO (Text) | 33923005723816 | Historical | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2016 March #2
*Starred Review* Brooks' debut novel is like taking a high-speed rail journey: scenery and images slip by, impressions of a landscape not seen fully until the end. A complex plot with parallel story lines follows three Jewish American families during WWII as each person tries to make sense of the Holocaust in Europe, and to help. The European refugee staying with the Auer family in Utica is the houseguest in the story, and she's an unexpectedly challenging person to hostâan eccentric, sensual actress who sleeps late, smokes in her messy room, and wanders unclothed at night. Max, the rabbi, gets involved in Shmuel's vision of a Jewish army but is caught by a sense of futility and his own pain, while Shmuel's fundraising efforts reap community scorn. And, yet, this is not a depressing book. Every image, metaphor, and character is carefully crafted to build a portrait of a vibrant culture and to illustrate that the ultimate inhumanity is ignoring people; the highest good is caring. With the emotional depth and lyricism of Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated (2002), and the flawed personalities and lavish imagery of Dara Horn's The World to Come (2006), this witty, moving, and literary paean to a people bursts with the depth and magic of a Chagall painting. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2016 February #1
It's 1941, and the Jews of Europe are disappearing to the East or fleeing on ships that can find no safe harbor. This sophisticated first novel considers the response by Americans Jews to the ever more insistent evidence of racial conflagration across the Atlantic. An inevitable cloud of despair hangs over this timely, psychologically questing debut, since the reader, like many of the book's characters, already knows things will not end well. Brooks uses a handful of figures to express various responses of American Jews to the terrible news filtering out of Europe and the national reluctance to intervene. In Manhattan, firebrand Shmuel Spiro wants to raise a Jewish army to fight the Nazis; in upstate Utica, otherworldly rabbi Max Hoffman understands the hypocrisy behind America's refugee visa quotas and how high the bureaucratic bar is set; and Utica junkyard owner Abe Auer, a first-generation immigrant himself, remains haunted by his role in his Russian family's history. Whi le opposing factions argue and disagree at conferences about how to rescue Hitler's victims, many middle-class Jews like Abe's wife and daughter find their comfortable lifestyles largely undisrupted. Then a refugee arrives, an atypical oneâglamorous, unsettling Yiddish actress Ana Beidler. Mature in tone and unhurried in pace, Brooks' novel is at its best in its portraits of unhappy men confronted by cataclysmic events in the world and unexpressed longings at home. Its dramatic fulcrum, however, is the book's weakness. Ana, blessed with irresistible allure and a burned-out attitude, is a more familiar characterâthe disruptive seductressâthan the troubled men in Utica and New York. Her actions may be central to the novel's development, yet it's a more compelling and original book in the scenes without her. Brooks offers an imperfect but insightful depiction of the choices individuals make in unbearable times. Copyright Kirkus 2016 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
