An indelible rendering of a woman caught between the Old World and the gleaming promise of postwar America, this novel of heart-stirring beauty recalls Sophie's Choice and The White Hotel as it portrays one woman's trajectory through life. Reading tour.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Changing her name to fit the altered circumstances of her life, the eponymous protagonist of Parker's intriguing new novel is in search of her identity even while she desperately seeks--but never finds--the sanctuary of a loving relationship. Born Anna Moser in pre-WW II Vienna, she grows up in an affluent, cultured household destined to be riven by two events: her eccentric parents' separation and the Holocaust. A talented pianist, Anna chooses not to pursue a career and for a time works as a servant for a London family--renaming herself Ann--but she returns to Vienna where she is raped by Nazi soldiers before escaping to America via marriage to a man she does not love. Buoyed by the promise of a new life, she leaves her first husband to marry another man, but that union too is fated not to endure, and in her 30s she ends up with a violent, gun-toting lawyer who calls her Annie. With each new incarnation, her life spirals downward. Novelist ( Small Business ) and nonfiction writer ( CEO ) Parker, notes that this book grew out of a compulsion to memorialize his mother, who "disappeared" when he was 15. Writing in a clear, restrained yet forceful prose, he relates his heroine's odyssey in episodic fashion, creating vivid moments frozen in time, like snapshots. He invests these scenes with colorful sensory images: prewar Vienna--when Anna is young and full of assurance that she has power over her future--glows in a pastel light, but the tints darken with Annie's loss of innocence, and the hues in the last part of the book, as Annie's existence becomes degraded and her environment more grim, are dark and somber. Because the heroine is emotionally frozen--traumatized by the Nazi rape and the knowledge that her parents never loved her--she remains a somewhat shadowy figure, passive and aloof. Nonetheless, readers will be haunted by her tragic story.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This powerful novel tells the tragic story of Anna Moser's life from childhood in prewar Vienna to adulthood in America. The daughter of self-absorbed, artistic parents, Anna, herself a talented musician, flees Nazi-infiltrated Vienna to work as a servant in London, changing her name to Ann to signify her new life. When Ann returns to Vienna to find her family, she is raped by a Nazi soldier--an event that will torment her for the rest of her life. Escaping Vienna again, Ann marries a childhood friend and starts over in America. She leaves her first husband to marry David, who single-mindedly pursues the American dream, but he leaves her as she becomes more and more preoccupied with the past. The guilt she feels for not resisting enough when she was raped in Vienna begins to crush her spirit. She is so enervated that she becomes trapped in a destructive relationship with brash lawyer Jake, who calls her Annie. Using spare prose, Parker ( Small Business , Norton, 1986) has created a haunting portrait of a victimized woman that lingers in the reader's memory. Highly recommended.
- Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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