Taking Care of Cleo: A Novel [Hardcover]

Bill Broder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2006

A rich and suspenseful novel about two enterprising young women who unwittingly run afoul of the notorious Jewish Purple Gang in Prohibition-era Detroit.

The year is 1928, the height of Prohibition; the setting is a resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Bearwalds are the only Jewish family in town, owners of the local dry goods store. Cleo, the elder daughter, is a beautiful, autistic twenty-year-old who, in her own way, operates more successfully than her loved ones. Rebecca, eighteen, yearns to escape what looks to be a lifetime of "taking care of Cleo"—the only role her parents see for her. Cleo herself has other ideas.

The novel's intricate plot is set in motion when Cleo discovers a beached bootleggers' yacht filled with illegal liquor. Using materials and tools from the boatworks where she is an apprentice boatwright, she renovates the yacht and coerces her sister into helping her to sell the liquor so that Rebecca, who is unaware of the plan, will have money to attend the University of Michigan. Cleo's activities cause the Purple Gang, famous Jewish gangsters out of Detroit, to mistake her father for a rival bootlegger, with near-fatal results.

Running through Taking Care of Cleo is a subtle and life-affirming reevaluation of autism, which becomes one bright thread in a novel that is by turns serious, ironic, and comic, and ends with a happy surprise.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jewish identity, autism and bootlegging form the unlikely framework for this coming-of-age story set in a lakeside Michigan resort town during Prohibition. Rebecca Bearwald longs to escape the confines of smalltown life in Charlevoix, where her family are the only Jews, but her parents expect her to stay at home to help them run their small dry goods store and take care of Cleo, Rebecca's beautiful, autistic older sister. But the summer that Rebecca turns 18, she defies her parents, secretly applying for a scholarship at the University of Michigan. Meanwhile, Cleo, an apprentice boatwright, discovers and restores a damaged yacht filled with liquor, beached by a violent storm and a gunfight between rival gangs of bootleggers. Cleo hides the liquor, planning to sell it to local speakeasies to help Rebecca get money for university, actions that give the Purple Gang—actual Detroit Jewish bootleggers—the idea that Mr. Bearwald has elbowed in on the gangsters' territory. The dangers that ensue seem to awaken the passions of each Bearwald but never feel truly threatening. While the novel (after Remember This Time) offers a sensitive portrayal of adolescent angst and strives to dispel negative stereotypes about autism, its farfetched plot makes its thematic resolutions feel forced. (Apr. 18) Look for more reviews, exclusively on the Web, at www.publishersweekly.com, Review Annex.
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About the Author

Bill Broder is the author of The Sacred Hoop and, with Gloria Kurian Broder, Remember This Time, a novel. His play Abalone was produced in Carmel, California. He received a Marin Arts Council Grant for Taking Care of Cleo. He and his wife live in Sausalito, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 349 pages
• Publisher: Handsel Books; 1 edition (April 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590512138
• ISBN-13: 978-1590512135
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,105,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bill Broder's latest novel, TAKING CARE OF CLEO, Handsel Books/Other Press, appeared in 2006. It was one of twenty books from all categories chosen as a Notable Book of 2007 by the Michigan Library Foundation. Broder has published two other books of fiction: THE SACRED HOOP, Sierra Club Books; REMEMBER THIS TIME, written with his wife, Gloria Kurian Broder, Newmarket Press. His family history, A PRAYER FOR THE DEPARTED, was published in 2011. His play ABALONE! was produced in Carmel, California. His other plays have received staged readings in the Bay Area by Equity actors. Professionally, Broder has worked as a free-lance writer, specializing in the writing, design, and production of educational materials for museums, schools, permanent exhibitions, and publishing companies.

COMMENTS AND NOTE
Review of TAKING CARE OF CLEO - Donna Seaman, Chicago Tribune
"Broder combines a storyteller's delight in complicated predicaments with a painter's eye for landscape and body language, and a poet's sense of place. . . . Ultimately Broder's sparkling, suspenseful and compassionate comedy of errors deftly reveals the complex symbiotic relationship between caregivers and the cared for, categories that are not always as clearly delineated as we might think."

Praise for THE SACRED HOOP
"Bill Broder's THE SACRED HOOP is a special book in which the moral qualities of the human spirit, linked to a metaphysical presence moving through history and pervading life, are persuasive and affecting. It's a fine piece of writing. A book as good as this . . . is something to inspire the courage and faith we all need to keep going."

Robert Stone

"THE SACRED HOOP is a wise and eloquent book, outlining through story the tragedy and triumph of human evolution."

Edward Abbey

"What a magnificent surprise, then, to discover something as profoundly original as THE SACRED HOOP. . . . It is fiction, but Bill Broder's vision is so rooted in historical and pre-historical fact that it must be taken as a kind of literary documentary. . . . He is a master story teller, whose graceful prose is so engrossing that readers will find themselves instantly absorbed in what is sure to become a classic.

Pat Holt, The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle

(Note) The THANKSGIVING TRILOGY follows a group of friends who left their blood families in the East and formed close relationships in the San Francisco Bay Area over the years - a family formed in exile, as it were. The annual reunion of this "family" takes place at Thanksgiving dinners - a practice of many groups of exiles in the West. The first novel, CRIMES OF INNOCENCE, takes place in 1959-60 and revolves around the execution of Caryl Chessman and the appearance of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the Bay Area - both events marking the beginning of the 60's revolution. The second, ESAU'S MOUNTAIN, 1980-81, tracks a serial killer who haunts the young women of the Thanksgiving family. It is set in a time when the members of the family (and the country) have retreated from political concerns and are immersed in their personal fulfillment. WHAT ROUGH BEAST?, the third novel, is framed around the celebration of Thanksgiving, 2008. The novel's heroine carries on the revolutionary fervor of an earlier time and finds herself a target of the repressive forces unleashed by the mythical "war on terror." The substance of all three novels is pertinent to the dilemmas we face today.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Color of Purple, June 29, 2006

By 

James E. Nickelson (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking Care of Cleo: A Novel (Hardcover)

Having met the author, and also born and raised in Detroit just 4 years after the events in the novel, I may be a bit biased. However, Bill Broder is a true word smith and a natural story teller. He recaptures the life and style of the location, Charlevoix Michigan, as well as the era. People today probably cannot imagine the immense wealth along with the extreme violence that existed in the pre-depression time. Broder's setting of a northern Michigan resort is a perfect venue for the characters---masters and servants---pursuing their individual passions, hopes, ambitions. During the brief summer vacation period, what in daily reality is a gentile community, is suddenly populated with Jewish families coming from all parts of the midwest. There follows an accomodation from all sides without expectations of egalitarianism. To me the plot of the novel, while interesting and necessary, is incidental to the descriptive recapturing of the era and its players. A very satisfying read.

4.0 out of 5 stars Rum Runner, December 3, 2011

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BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking Care of Cleo: A Novel (Hardcover)

This story, set in 1927-28 is a brilliant period piece, a brilliant historical fiction involving the Packard-driving Purple Gang. The Purple Gang were a gang of Jewish bootleggers who were infamous in Detroit during the Jazz Age and Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s.

Rebecca Bearwald, 18 and her sister, Cleo, 20 are the daughters of a well-respected pharacist in a small town in Michigan. Rebecca, during the 1927-28 school year is a senior in high school and her sister Cleo is severely autistic. Cleo, while bright is marginally verbal and her behavior hollers autism at you. Sadly, not everyone in their close-knit community accepts Cleo. She was once arrested after having a major meltdown in public. Cleo was then bound in a straitjacket in the town jail before her family bailed her out.

However, there are people who do accept Cleo. Some of them range from the kind Clovers, family friends of the Bearwalds to members of the Purple Gang. Cleo soon becomes involved in helping the Gang hide their supplies of bootleg liquor. She is an unlikely accomplice; nobody thinks that Cleo would be able to pull such a thing off. However, Cleo's motives are very pure....she has no idea of the danger involving possible shootings that are part of the Purple Gang's methods.

Fifteen years before the word "autism" was coined (the word "autism" was created in 1943), Cleo was viewed as an unbalanced person who would depend on others for the rest of her life. However, Cleo is full of surprises. After an especially embarrassing public display at her sister's school, Cleo becomes even more secretive. She is keenly aware of Rebecca's openly flaunting herself and actually THROWING herself at a young man visiting Michigan during the summer. I didn't like Rebecca and was glad that for all her shameless flaunting and even taking further steps to seal the relationship deal with Tony, the young man she met, ended up more than just a bit suprised.

More surprises are unearthed, such as who among this close-knit community supported the Gang and who wanted no part of them. And why was CLEO involved? What did she stand to gain from being a part of helping them? And what did she understand of the Gang's operation and her part? How much does Rebecca REALLY know?

Serious topics are included, such as Rebecca's teacher Mrs. Thrush, who was rumored to be a lesbian and from the telling sounded as if these rumors were possibly accurate; Cleo's autism; the danger involved in the bootleg industry and flagrant sexual behavior.

I was glad that Cleo came out ahead in one major arena. I also felt Rebecca got what she had coming where the young man was concerned. By 2004, at age 95, Rebecca has a lot of musings to share with readers.

This is an excellent book and one that will keep readers riveted. The characters are well fleshed out and very realistic. The descriptions are so vivid and captivating that it is easy to feel transported to Charlevoix, Michigan during the Prohibition Era. Cleo is a delightfully believable and realistic character with autism and it is always a treat to read about how people with autism fared during the early days prior to the term being coined.

5.0 out of 5 stars Taking Care of Cleo, September 13, 2009

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Thomas A. Clark "thummer" (Cedar Park, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking Care of Cleo: A Novel (Hardcover)

I enjoyed Taking Care of Cleo: A Novel so much that I read it twice. The second time I read it aloud to my wife. Not many novels can be read aloud. It would make a good audio book.

It would also be a great book club selection. 'Cleo' prompts discussions on all sorts of topics, including family relationships, care giving, religious prejudice and prohibitions.

'Cleo' is just good, clean entertainment for adult readers of all persuasions. I plan to give copies as Christmas gifts this year.

Tom Clark