The Puzzle King [Hardcover]

Betsy Carter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2009

On a gray morning in 1936, Flora Phelps stands in line at the American consulate in Stuttgart, Germany.  She carries a gift for the consul, whom she will bribe in order to help her family get out of Hitler’s Germany.  This is the story of unlikely heroes, the lively, beautiful Flora and her husband, the brooding, studious Simon, two Jewish immigrants who were each sent to America by their families to find better lives. An improbable match, they meet in New York City and fall in love. Simon—inventor of the jigsaw puzzle—eventually makes his fortune. Now wealthy, but still outsiders, Flora and Simon become obsessed with rescuing the loved ones they left behind in Europe whose fates are determined by growing anti-Semitism on both sides of the Atlantic.

Inspired by her family’s legends, Betsy Carter weaves a memorable tale. In the tradition of Suite Française or Amy Bloom's Away, she explores a fascinating moment in history and creates a cast of characters who endure with dignity, grace, and hope for the future. 
 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Carter (Swim to Me) mines her family history in this underwhelming novel that examines the lives and loves of Jewish immigrants in early 20th-century New York. Nine-year-old Simon Phelps is sent by his mother from Lithuania to America, where he grows up poor but ambitious on the Lower East Side. He meets German-born Flora Grossman, and their marriage and ascent into American success forms the linchpin for the familiar tales of immigrants vacillating between the New World and the Old. The interwoven stories of Flora and her sisters—Seema, the kept mistress of a WASP banker, and the somber Margot, who endures an austere life in post-WWI Germany—highlight the different paths for German-Jewish women. Meanwhile, Simon's booming career in the advertising world is tempered by the grief he feels as he searches for his lost family, though his success enables him to plan a bold mission of salvation. Unfortunately, the narrative, while admirable in scope, feels too beholden to its source material, with the remote, speculative tone making this often feel more like a historian's work than a novelist's. (Aug.)
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Review

"Everybody loves an inspiring rags-to-riches story, and The Puzzle King delivers that in spades . . . [it tells] the immigrant story from a uniquely relationship-and family-based perspective, all the while honoring their bravery and stoicism in the face of great odds.” --San Francisco Book Review
(San Francisco Book Review )

“Skillfully using ties to her own family, Carter weaves a compelling story and  a rich, multilayered novel around three Jewish sisters and deftly captures the squalor and bustle of early 20th century New York . . . A fine novel with twists and turns and pieces that interlock tightly . . . Carter at her best.” --The Miami Herald
(The Miami Herald ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (August 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565125940
• ISBN-13: 978-1565125940
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,030,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping tale of character and commitment, August 13, 2009

By 

Jean Seligmann "Jeanie" (Menemsha, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Puzzle King (Hardcover)

Betsy Carter has achieved something remarkable with her third novel; although the background of the story is the Gathering Storm for Jews in Germany during the 1930s, the foreground is the absorbing, full-of-wonders story of an American Jewish family that is based on the author's own forebears. Prodigiously researched and rich in the details of New York daily life in the early decades of the 20th century (it's comforting and thrilling to encounter icons like the "new" Yankee Stadium and the Metropolitan Museum of Art), the book starts with the story of 9-year-old Simon Phelps, who emigrates from Lithuania to New York in 1892, bringing along only a pad and some crayons. As a young man, he meets and marries the beautiful Flora Grossman, a character based on Carter's own great-aunt Flora. With his artistic brilliance and determination, Simon is dubbed America's Puzzle King, who makes a fortune inventing and producing the first mass-marketable cardboard jigsaw puzzles. That too, really happened to Carter's great-uncle, but nearly all the other characters are fictional, like Flora's slinky sister Seema (called "Seamless" by a boyfriend), who collects beaux--and crosses. You know from the book's brief prologue that Flora will become an unlikely heroine (as the real Flora did), with the help of Simon's careful planning and extraordinary generosity. But Carter has also fashioned a diverting and suspenseful saga of the years leading up to 1936, moving back and forth from the Phelpses' affluent life in Yonkers, New York, to the struggles of Flora's family back in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Talk about seamless. Carter has woven a tapestry of real and imagined people and events so skillfully that there are no loose strands. Her book contains all the drama, color and dreams of the best stories---but also the drumbeat of history and the throbbing pulse of real life. Highly recommended!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, lost some steam toward the end, September 5, 2009

By 

Pam Gersh "Megson" (Louisville, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Puzzle King (Hardcover)

I liked this book because it was a new story about the Holocaust that I had not heard before. The book starts out great and the characters are wonderful, but about 3/4 of the way through it losses steam and there are a lot of loose ends at the ending because you never find out what happens to some of the main characters which was disappointing.

The larger point of the book was the history lesson and the fact that people were saved and I understand that. It would have made a great non-fiction. I'm wouldn't read it again, but I'm glad I now know about the story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Puzzle King, August 1, 2009

By 

Ellie Bellie "Book Lover" (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Puzzle King (Hardcover)

I think that this book along with Pictures At An Exhibition are the two sleeper books of the year. A compeling story and well written I could not put it down.