From Publishers Weekly
Like Edith Wharton and Henry James, Hortense Calisher finds the drama of fiction as much in the analysis of motive as in the various excitements of action. Her newest novel might be said to have a Wharton-ish feel to it¢if, that is, Wharton had written about assimilated Jews rather than status-conscious WASPS. The Jewish family at the center is named, surprisingly, Duffy. Zipporah Zangwill's marriage to Peter Duffy is mixed not because they come from different faiths, but because they disbelieve in different deities¢Zipporah in the Jewish God, Peter in the Catholic one. The first third of the book, which is marvelously felt, tracks Peter's mental degeneration. After retiring from the university where he had been a philosopher, Peter becomes absentminded, then feebleminded, and finally physically debilitated. Zipporah, a nonacademic anthropologist and mother of five, takes him to Italy to hide his condition. Zipporah is helped by a mysterious nurse, Debra Cohen, an awesomely cool Israeli sabra who disappears when Peter dies. The novel's middle section portrays Zipporah in the autumn renaissance of her widowhood. She inherits a fortune from her neighbor and friend, Norman, and takes a lover, the mythically wealthy Foxy Mendenhall. Calisher shows Zipporah's five children creeping into a professionally respectable middle age, while their children zoom through their 20s. Zipporah is particularly close to her grandson Bertram, who is waiting for a project to happen. He has studied to be a rabbi, but avoided a post. Ten years after Debra Cohen's vanishing act, Bert finds a clue to her whereabouts and tracks her down in Europe. While Calisher's novel is much too baggy, it is also majestically persistent, with an old-fashioned faith in the novel's ability to make worlds.
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(*Starred Review*) Calisher, Jamesian in style and intent, traces the meshing of inner and outer worlds with voluptuous precision. Truly a grande dame of letters, she remains intrepid, demanding, and indefatigable in her fifteenth novel, a riverine family saga. Its source is the loving marriage of Zipporah Zangwill, a Jewish anthropologist, and her lapsed Catholic philosopher husband, Peter Duffy. Their large and elegant old New York apartment has been home to six children and the scene of ever-swelling Sunday family gatherings as these complicated individuals--some tall and blond, others short and Brillo-haired, some gay, some straight, some artistic, some theological, some professional--extend the family circle with friends, lovers, spouses, and children. Calisher's approach is spiraling rather than linear, and much is conveyed through brilliantly witty conversations performed in scenes as beautifully composed as paintings. Marvelously piquant, Zipporah, the heart of the novel, is fluent in the deep meaning of ritual and family ties, and as she and her colorful progeny make their improvised way in the crazy world, Calisher offers profound reflections on religion, identity, sexuality, age, illness, and our tenacious attachment to life in all its misery and joy. Subtly and incrementally powerful, this phenomenal work astutely illuminates the myriad dualities of existence.
Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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