Ingram Publishers Services

Ingram Publishers Services

English

“In a beautifully crafted novel, Silman unravels the life of Lise Branson . . . [and] does a remarkable job of depicting the qualities of the river—its majesty, practicality, and danger as integral parts of Lise's life.” —Booklist   “A lyrical, sad and beautifully rendered story about the power of family love and the intrusions of time, place and history . . . Liselotte Hurwitz, beautiful and gifted . . . [was] the privileged daughter of a famous medical doctor in Vienna, her parents escaped the Nazis early and settled in a pretty Westchester town . . . Later, Lise . . . has a seemingly happy family of her own. But . . . when her son Arthur . . . dies, Lise unravels. . . . [and] it’s up to her daughter, Diny, to reconstruct and redeem her mother’s half-submerged emotional life. . . . one of the most attractive things about this attractive novel is its loving description of the [Hudson], its lore and its effect as a mirror and consoler of the lives of the novel’s sturdy, vivid, and affecting characters.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review   “Can madness . . . result from the deepest desire . . . for order and continuity, for the security and protection of those whom one most loves? In a novel of ever-growing emotional intensity, Silman demonstrates the effect of the violence . . . of our century upon a family that early fled Nazi pogroms . . . The river serves as leitmotif of the major character’s fears and longings . . . and resonates in the reader’s own psyche; for Lise . . . tells us much about ourselves . . . [becoming] ‘universal’ at the moment she begins to question her own sanity. The novel has drama and suspense, magnitude and integrity . . .” —James McConkey, author of Court of Memory