The Family Markowitz [Hardcover]

Allegra Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

Told through weddings, deaths, academic conferences, and dreams, the uniquely humorous story of three generations of Markowitzes is revealed, creating a familial world of conflict, confusion, and love.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The stories in this collection are so linked and consistent, the book is almost a novel. It tells the comic and endearing history of a family of archetypal American Jews. Rose, the finicky and irrational Jewish mother, becomes increasingly dependent on Percodan and on her two sons, Ed, a hard-headed academic, and Henry, an arty dilettante. Ed's writer wife Sara suffers through teaching creative writing at the local Jewish Community Center. Ed painfully endures an interfaith weekend with crushingly banal Christian ecumenists, even though both he and Sara are completely irreligious. Meanwhile their daughter Miriam alarms them by rediscovering Judaism. Goodman, whose stories appear regularly in the New Yorker, delights the reader with recognition of the funny in the familiar.

From Publishers Weekly

Goodman's voice is fresh and distinctive as she limns a wry, funny, touching portrait of an American Jewish family in a brilliantly observed, lovingly rendered novel composed of interlocking stories. Rose Markowitz, stubborn, outspoken, kvetching, a survivor and an individualist whose youth was spent in Vienna and London during WWII, is 73, living with her second husband in Manhattan, when we first meet her. He dies, and for most of the book, Rose, now in her 80s, copes with lonely widowhood in Venice, Calif., where her bachelor son, Henry, an art gallery manager, lures her to live. But soon he splits for Oxford, England, to become an Anglophile scholar and aesthete. Rose's other son, Ed, a Georgetown University historian of the Middle East and media pundit on terrorism, is, in Henry's eyes, a rank apologist for the PLO. Sarah, Ed's novelist/poet wife, is a frustrated fame-seeker, distracted from her writing by having to raise four children. Their daughter Miriam, a Harvard Med student, surprises her secular, liberal parents by embracing Orthodox ritual observance. Goodman (Total Immersion), who has published sections of this work in the New Yorker and Commentary, combines delicious comic set pieces with deeper meditations and conversations on Jewish identity, God, frazzled relationships and the breakdown of family life.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 262 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374153213
• ISBN-13: 978-0374153212
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,961,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Brooklyn in 1967, but grew up in Honolulu where I got to run around barefoot. I lived in Hawaii until I flew back east for college. I attended Harvard, where I stepped in my first slush puddle. Now I have waterproof boots because I live in Cambridge, Mass, with my family. Don't get me started on the winters here, and the snow days! When I'm not writing, I spend most of my time driving my four kids around, reading, thinking about getting some exercise (I like to swim), wondering what we should have for dinner, and occasionally indulging in some therapeutic vacuuming. Oh, and I keep a blog of my thoughts on the writing process, the books I'm reading and the literary life. You can find me at www.allegragoodman.com or join me on Facebook.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loved this! Lots of silliness.., August 19, 2000

By 

R. Peterson "International citizen" (Leverett, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Family Markowitz (Paperback)

Oy vey, "The Family Markowitz" is what every WASP imagines every Jewish family is really like. And perhaps it is what every Jewish family might read and shake their heads at - for the truth captured within. I don't know. I do know that I alternately grinned and groaned with every guilt trip, every piece of cognitive dissonance, every whine, and every solution. Goodman writes a good story, and one that seems entirely plausible and accurate in its dialogues, descriptions, and hang-ups. The reader learns all about Mama Rose, her two sons, Ed and Henry, their wives, and Ed's children who range in type from "born again orthodox Judaism" to "Did I hear you say Avi's girlfriend isn't Jewish?". They deal with their own minds and souls while they combat and juggle the anguish of their family members. No one really listens, and no one really hears, but in the end everyone seems to understand perfectly. A fun read, and for someone who appreciates the Jewish-American world - a hilarious open window on the community as it is portrayed.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching accounts, October 25, 1999

By 

D. Sloan (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Family Markowitz (Hardcover)

Everyone finds someone to root for and someone to scorn in this delicious collage. The author obviously had strong and tender attachment to each of her characters, and you will too. This book should be used in English classes to teach character development.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast-reading and amusing. I truly enjoyed it., January 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Family Markowitz (Hardcover)

If you've ever been to a family reunion, you can certainly relate to this book. The author gives each character a chapter of his/her own -- at least one, and one comes away understanding that every family, every life has a little craziness in it. Very warm and even inspiring.