Chains Around the Grass [Hardcover]

Naomi Ragen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2001

Set in the 1950's in New York City, CHAINS AROUND THE GRASS is a portrait of a Jewish-American family that glows with affection, tenderness, and courage when tragedy changes the lives of all who are left behind. A passionately personal and heartfelt book, based heavily on autobiographical material, this is the book Ms. Ragen says that she became an author to write.

Sara is barely six years old when her beloved father unexpectedly vanishes from her life. Her mother, Ruth, a dreamy and reluctant housewife, is now left with three small children to bring up, and the knowledge that she will somehow have to pick up the pieces, if she is to survive and fend for the family. But Sara takes up a vigil at the window of their dismal apartment, refusing to accept that her father won't be coming back.

"She thought of herself as a lighthouse keeper, a watchman on guard, a sailor on the topmost rigging, scouting for land. It was her duty to be there when the magic moment happened as it surely must, for no other explanation made any sense.

She scouted the men passing by, searching for those of a certain height, a certain weight, a certain walk... She followed each with hope until he turned right instead of left or left instead of right, or drew close enough to prove too tall or too short, too thin or two heavy. And each disappointment chipped away at her hope, reducing it, but never actually killing it. Like a plant cut to the ground, the roots sent up foolish new growth that twined around the facts, embellishing them, giving them something akin to beauty."

To this bittersweet and moving tale of childhood and the loss of innocence, the author brings the added intensity of a personal memoir. This is Naomi Ragen at her best, her writing charged with a searing, emotional truth as she unravels a tale of childhood, betrayal and the unending resilience of family love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Based on novelist Ragen's own experiences growing up in an ethnically mixed low-income housing project in the Rockaways, this novel opens a window into the bittersweet world of the Markowitz family as they struggle to make ends meet in 1950s New York City. A first-generation Jewish immigrant with incredible reserves of optimism and ambition, David Markowitz trades in his religious identity for the promised gold of America, believing that "if you really wanted to, if you worked your can off, you could not only get out of Brooklyn, but get Brooklyn out of you." After being conned into making a bad investment that leaves him and his family financially and emotionally bankrupt, David dies suddenly. For the first time in her life, his wife, Ruth, must take sole responsibility for her three children, something that seems overwhelmingly difficult. Ruth manages to enroll her eldest son, Jesse, and her daughter, Sara, at a private Jewish day school. Sara embraces her educational and spiritual environment and finds hope and self-renewal in the form of her parents' lost religion. But Jesse, to his mother's dismay, refuses to attend the school and instead self-educates himself in business so that he can fulfill his father's vision of success. Terrorizing his mother with his unreasonable plans and propositions, he self-destructs. Ragen (The Ghost of Hannah Mendes; Sotah) elaborates on her usual themes, extolling the comforting power of faith in a hostile modern world. Working with familiar characters, plot and setting, she crafts a comforting if somewhat shopworn tale of family, hope, religion and the dark side of the American dream.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Naomi Ragen is the author of four international best-sellers: Jephte's Daughter, Sotah, The Sacrifice of Tamar, and The Ghost of Hannah Mendes. Born in New York, she attended Brooklyn College and received an MA in English from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For the last thirty years, she has made her home in Jerusalem. The translation of her books into Hebrew in 1995 has made her one of Israel's best-loved authors. An outspoken advocate for gender equality and human rights, she is a columnist for The Jerusalem Post. Ragen's first play, Women's Quorum, was commissioned by Habima, Israel's National Theater.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Toby Press; 1 edition (October 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1902881532
• ISBN-13: 978-1902881539
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,405,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I attended The Hebrew Institute of Long Island. I then decided that I wanted to be a writer. I got a B.A. from Brooklyn College, while simultaneously attending Sara Schneirer's Hebrew Teacher's Seminary in Boro Park. I loved God. I still do. But it wasn't so clear to me whether people who wore the black outfits and wigs were truly more pious, or just stuck in some social groove. I got a Master's Degree in Engish from Hebrew University in 1977. I only started writing novels when I was in my late thirties, after the birth of my fourth child.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry, truth and life, November 18, 2001

By 

Alyssa A. Lappen (Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Chains Around the Grass (Hardcover)

I read Naomi Ragen's weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post religiously. But I could not understand when she said this was what she had lived her whole life to write. Then I read the book.

This autobiographical novel of family resilience distills many truths that obviously took a lifetime to learn--truths that melt bitterness.

The book weaves several layers together--a of a family's travails, its near ruin in a tangle of poverty, bad decisions and relationships gone sour; a soul's awakening; and family renewal. The poetry of all three resonates throughout in a voice as subtle and profound as it is sensible.

Ragen has given few details when she notes that readers will all feel sure that their "own knowledge would have kept you safe," and then warns, "Of course, you'd be fooling yourself."

Poetry comes in what follows: "It is a false security, that feeling of superiority we have listening to someone else recount the steps to personal disaster because all of us are so very similar--we humans. We feel safe only because the teller is untalented, the truth unconveyed. And so, you must consider the soft building dust underfoot, the newness of the place."

One can only relish Ragen's description, some time later, of a child discovering the value of her own life. "She dropped to her knees, breathless, aware of her own heart pounding like some stranger begging to be let in.... She lay down in the sand. First she wiggled her toes, feeling the air pass through them like the cold touch of metal. She felt a strong sudden consciousness of her ankles and the firm muscles of her calves, the long wonderful stretch of skin, so smooth and soft, that ran from her toes to her hips. She felt aware of her stomach and the softly beating heart in her chest and her mouth and her nose and eyes and ears.

"A nameless joy began to rise inside her, wavelike. She felt it spread, as a wave of breaks and spreads, touching the far-off shore, flooding the sand in a quick deliberate flood. A sudden searing light, like the sun, pierced what had been dark and cold and filled with fear.

" 'I'm alive!' she thought, and was comforted."

Have we not all been in that place? The same child still later astonishes herself and readers with her discovery of her soul and place in the universe. The sense of discovery alone makes this wise novel worth reading. But the book also rewards readers with intense optimism, even when its characters are at their lowest.

With the same poetry that the book opens, it closes: "The echoes moved out of the corners, beating like wingless birds around the room."

I cannot recommend this book or author highly enough. Alyssa A. Lappen

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love and faith..., November 4, 2001

By 

Stacy Alesi "I am the BookBitch" (www.bookbitch.com) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chains Around the Grass (Hardcover)

This beautifully written tale brings the impoverished Markowitz family to life as their American Dream turns into a nightmare. Set in the 1950's in the projects in The Bronx, those "chains around the grass" are metaphoric as well as physical for little Sara. Her strength of character comes from the strength of her faith and is a wondrous thing to behold. The autobiographical nature of this novel makes it a heart wrenching and compelling read.  

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I've read better by her, February 6, 2002

By 

Heather (Lafayette Hill, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chains Around the Grass (Hardcover)

I typically love Naomi Ragen's book, but this one left a lot to be desired. I believe that she felt that she needed to write a book and this is the first thing that came out of her pen.

While the first half of the book is the story of Dave, the husband, the second half is the story of no one. Depsite the fact that the back of the book leads you to believe it is about the daughter, Sara, she is not the main character in any sense.

There is no story for you to follow and the characters don't develop well. Their characteristics just sort of "appear."

The Jewish thread seems manufactured as if she had to insert it somewhere.

If you want to read a bood Naomi Ragen book, read ANY of the others.