The River Midnight [Import] [Paperback]

Lilian Nattel (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Canada (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676972608
• ISBN-13: 978-0676972603
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,937,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Welcome! I'm Lilian Nattel, novelist and mom. I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in a 100 year old house that is high and narrow, in a kid-friendly, granola-eating neighbourhood. I write, dabble in photography, sew a bit, knit a bit, skate and swim. I love books and I love food but my husband is the cook in the family. My 1st two novels were historical fiction, & my latest novel, Web of Angels, is set right here in my neighbourhood in the 2000's. I always have more ideas than lives, but my two amazing kids keep me grounded. Books are a partnership between author and readers. I love the way the internet brings us together so the conversation can continue!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A need to share this book., January 25, 2000

By 

Georgene A. Bramlage "Cercis" (Leverett, MA / Roanoke, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The River Midnight, A Novel (Hardcover)

An excellent first novel of a time and place that I've heard about too little. Although I am not Jewish, this book portrays a time and place from which my grandparents escaped. It was like hearing my grandfather speak of the countryside, political situation, and schooling. Now, I understand why he could read and write four languages (and church Latin!). A criticsim I've read is that some of the characters are not fully developed. However, isn't this the way with "real" life? A part of us always remains hidden from those around us...was Hannah-Leah's failure to have children due to something with her or with her husband? We'll never know and back then even a midwife couldn't know for sure. As for the angel characters, aside from a literary device, who's to say they didn't exist then and don't exist now? I found the environmental descriptions both imagined and real an integral and rewarding part of the story - I wouldn't want to enter that mikvah. The extensive bibliography also shows good research and some guidlines for more in-depth reading. For this sharing, a big thank-you to the author.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My FAVORITE book!, December 8, 1999

By 

Cathy G. Plotkin (Washington, DC area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The River Midnight, A Novel (Hardcover)

I borrowed this book from my mother and read it in a week's time. For anyone whose ancestors came from Poland, it gives a personal glimpse into what shetyl life might have been like. These four women also have contemporary counterparts in today's world- an intellectual, a dreamer, a family person, and a professional (midwife). This book so touched my heart that I felt a strong desire to share with all my friends. To this end, I have started a book club with 16 people, and this book is our first selection. As my friends are reading it, they are pouring in songs of praise. The BEST read in a long, long time. Enjoy! It is a wonderful historically accurate novel.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You will love this book from the first story to the last., September 3, 2000

By 

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

This review is from: The River Midnight (Paperback)

Nattel has taken the life in a tiny Polish shtetl before the Holocaust (and one that we come to understand disappeared during that horrendous period) and presents it to the reader through the thoughts and feelings of the villagers, both men and women. In the first half of the book we are introduced to the original four wild girls, Misha, the midwife; Faygela, the mother of many and wife of the village baker; Hannah-Leah, the butcher's wife; and the children of Zisa-Sara who had left the shtetl with her husband, only to die in a sweatshop fire in New York City and leave her orphaned children to return to her native home. The tales told through these women and men of this imaginary town in Poland are sweet, magical, aggravating, heart-wrenching, startling, and just about every other adjective you can imagine. Nattel is a marvelous story-teller and the reader is caught up from the first page in the lives and loves of these simple and wonderful people. Of particular joy to me was the sprinkling of Yiddish that Nattel uses throughout the book - it not only gives the right flavor to the tales, but since many of the words are reminiscent of my childhood in a Jewish-oriented community, they are like old familiar friends. They add a somewhat funny, appropriate, accurate and tasty spice to the stories of the interactions, friendships, secrets and ties that these people have with one and other. This is a wonderful book.