I thoroughly enjoyed this book about being Jewish in New Orleans. Very well set up storyline by the Author, I applaud her choice to break the story into thirds, featuring the father, Bernie, who escapes the Nazis in Germany, but whose mother dies in Auschwitz; the mother, Letty, born into a rich Jewish family in New Orleans who really don’t want to be considered Jewish; and their daughter, Darby, a smart girl and a breath of fresh air. Tragic ending, but the book is full of compelling details and never overdone. Recommended. ( )

Bernie is the German Jew who escaped Nazi Germany before the war. He wants to be an observant Jew, but when he meets and marries Letty his Jewish observance is eroded. For her snobbish mother he is too Jewish. She sees herself as being above the label of being Jewish, yet all her connections are Jewish. Arguably her prosperity depends on her Jewish roots. For Letty’s mother money buys everything; the tuition at her granddaughter’s school, Rena the maid and later the judiciary in a hit and run accident.

Bernie starts his oral history by saying his favourite programme is the $64,000 question. This may be connected to his desire to provide a sustainable income for his family, through his business. Money is a constant theme throughout the book, because Letty’s parents are wealthy and use this as a powerful weapon against their own son-in-law. This obviously makes Bernie feel uncomfortable and is one of the reasons why he wants to move to New York, to be closer to his business partner. Lack of money was also an issue when he was trying to free his mother from Nazi Germany. The fact that he was too late, will forever weigh on his conscience. It also may be one reason why he asks that his oral history be kept secret until 50 years have passed.

Where Bernie sees bumping into Letty on Ellice Island as a coincidence, she sees it almost as fate. For Letty this is another example of her mother’s snobbery. The fact that bumping into someone was their fault and as such they should pick up her spilled luggage. Later she denies having met Bernie, as they would have been travelling first class.

Letty states in her oral history the she does not like to travel, which is partly the reason why she won’t leave New Orleans and that she does not care what people think. This is only partly true, as she does care a great deal about what her mother thinks. It is because she wants her mother’s approval, love and respect that she will not move away, despite Bernie’s pleas. Yet she can never get away from her mother’s money and influence. She wants the best for her daughter, so agrees to her mother paying the fees, but later she applies and qualifies for a scholarship. If she was less caring and more independent minded, she may have done this sooner, before the threat of non-payment of fees.

Derby is Bernie and Letty’s daughter. Her most important characteristic is that she can speak and read German. This allows her to speak to her father’s German friends and enables her to read her paternal grandmother’s letters, written to her father from Germany. It is her friends prejudice against the Germans, and the Nazi’s in particular, which bring out the tragedy and new beginnings at the end of the book. Darby, perhaps more than her mother, personifies an unfettered attitude when it comes to what people think. She is very much the clever outsider. It is only when her best friend Catherine leaves for boarding school and she is forced to fit in with the other girls that things go drastically wrong.

The most prominent and obnoxious character is Letty’s mother. Dominating the book completely, she rules and manipulates everyone’s lives through money and influence. In the end, you also feel her husband has to tow the party line. For her, being Jewish is a second-class citizen not a badge of honour and being an orthodox Jew or an observant Jew is even worse. Snobbish to the point of vulgarity she is petty and mean. Letty refers to her as delighting in making other people’s lives miserable. For her it is a source of power and status. She cares what people will think of Letty, as it is a bad reflection on her. When she takes Darby to Europe it is to show her the advantages of money and what she can do for her that her father can’t. No one knows that Darby and her father have their own bond through their knowledge of the German language. Indeed Bernie requests her grandmother does not take his daughter to Germany due to the painful memories. In the itinerary she marks Germany as Austria and takes Darby to Bergan-Belson where her paternal grandmother was held and where she learns of her ultimate fate. Such is her cruelty when Darby gets upset and does not want to know, she goes through the records herself.

The novel is separated into 3 perspectives; father, mother and child. Each give their own side of the proceedings with the hateful grandmother being the central link. I do wonder if the story is overshadowed by the grandmother’s presence, diminishing the others roles and somewhat flattening their characters.

The ending is fitting to what is essentially a very challenging situation. A lesson in how far we let money and other people dominate our lives. ( )

I found this to be a remarkable book. It became even more remarkable when I watched the youtube video that was attached to the end of my Kindle edition. That interview with the author revealed the story to be largely autobiographical, which made it even more bittersweet. I would recommend watching the video to anyone interested in the book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11OzHHla9N0 I think the story was told in an ingenious way by framing it as a series of oral histories about Jews in New Orleans. It starts with the father's story beginning with his flight from Germany in 1939, when he was forced to leave his mother behind. He joins the U.S. Army & ends up in Intelligence, and meets his future wife in New Orleans. She is the daughter of wealthy, assimilated Reform Jews. She is strong enough to defy them and marry her true love, but not strong enough to break away from them and give up her lifelong quest to earn their love and respect. She picks up the story with her oral history, and the last portion is in the voice of their daughter. I thought that the portrait of the maternal grandmother and her ceaseless machinations to enforce her will on her daughter and family was one of the most evil I ever read until I watched the author interview and realized how true to life this story was. The prejudice of this subset of Jewish society in New Orleans towards immigrant Jews of that period was horrifying. The "mean girls" in the book were truly evil as well. I was completely absorbed in the book all the way through, and highly recommend it. ( )

Wonderful slice of life story told from all three members of a small family, reminded me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Bernie Cooper (nee Kuper) came to America to escape Nazi Germany. After joining the American army he finds himself in New Orleans where he meets his future wife, Letty. The story starts with Bernie as your narrator then the story is picked up by his wife Letty and finished from the point of view of their daughter, Darby. Well written and bittersweet. This was an excellent way to spend an afternoon in the sun. Good Job!! ( )

Free on Kindle. Oh why don't I read better books??? Spoilers. OK, so this book is about a man who flees Germany in the late 30's. He leaves it very late but he gets out. But his mother won't come with him. The book is told in 3 voices, as if each is narrating a life story for an oral history. It starts with the man, then his wife, their their daughter. The man comes to New York but there is no money. His friend said there would be a job but there really isn't. So he goes into the army. He is so smart he becomes an officer. He gets sent to New Orleans. And he meets a girl and her family is Jewish but they hate him and they hate everything about him and they are brutal and cruel to him. It is very appalling. They seem to have not a scrap of humanity. He tries to raise $160 to get his mother out of Germany but they sneer at him. He ends up coming back to New Orleans after the war & marrying the girl but their whole life is distorted and in some ways destroyed by the parents. And by the grief he has for his mother that he can't talk about. The parents continue to be completely insane in their treatment of their daughter & her husband & their granddaughter.

So, things go on, It gets tiring. Time goes on. And then, in an improbably way, the story comes to an end. The granddaughter tells her story. She is taken to Europe by her grandmother. The grandmother has promised not to take her to Germany but she does. Why does she? They go to Bergen Belsen, where the German grandmother was taken, and they find that she was shipped to Auschwitz. But why would this horrible woman, who hates Jews, go to Bergen Belsen? And then things spiral downhill. The father finds a slip of paper with Auschwitz written on it, so he knows his daughter went to Germany & he has to confront his mother's face. The granddaughter, for some reason I don't understand, decides to tell assimilated Jewish girls (evil, evil, evil) the story of her Grandmother...and she invites them to her house...and she shows them her Grandmother's treasured letters.... And one or more of them take the letters, and they send one to the father with the horrible words written on it: "Nazi's didn't kill your mother, You did". Because he couldn't come up with $160 to get her out.

So the poor man kills himself. Why then? Who knows. And then, suddenly, the wife's attitude towards her parents changes and she can now leave New Orleans -- she can now do what would have saved her husband's life if she could have done it before.

So it is a sad story.