Pears on a Willow Tree (Paperback)

by Leslie Pietrzyk (Author) "After I moved to Thailand to teach English to rich schoolchildren, my mother took up letter writing, and often she enclosed old photographs with her..." (more)
Key Phrases: coney dogs, poppy seed cake, Leslie Pietrzyk, Aunt Wanda, Father Lipinski (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Leslie Pietrzyk's Pears on a Willow Tree starts with a recipe for pierogi and ends with one for poppy-seed cake. In between, four generations of Polish-American women talk, cook, argue, sew each other's wedding dresses, tell stories, and understand and misunderstand each other in the way that only mothers and daughters can. Starting with iron-willed Rose, who emigrates from Poland, and ending with Amy, who flees the role of her alcoholic mother's keeper, the Marchewka women enact an ancient dance of embracing and rejecting the tradition they come from. "It is the girls who keep the family alive," Rose writes to her Polish mother; but it is also true that, as she later tells her great-granddaughter, "It's impossible for a good daughter to leave; it's impossible for a good daughter to stay." Many of the chapters in Pears on a Willow Tree were first published as stories, and they sometimes hang together a trifle too neatly, with none of a novel's usual depth or range. But Pietrzyk has a nifty, uncluttered prose style and above all a keen ear for the way women really do talk. Pears on a Willow Tree is a promising debut from a writer with a gift for the enduring art of domestic portraiture. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
A family saga comprising 16 self-contained chapters, each a monologue (or dialogue) featuring one of four women in a prolific Polish-American clan, this compelling debut is an example of the novel-in-stories at its best. In prose as plain and four-square as her protagonists, Pietrzyk traces the family's evolution from 1919 through the late 1980s, from its transplantation to the U.S.?specifically, Detroit?through three generations, showing how the older women (who privately refer to themselves as Marchewskas, after matriarch Rose's maiden name) preserve ethnic traditions and family customs and why their daughters shake them off. Of the 10 women of the Marchewska family, the book focuses upon Rose, her daughter Helen, granddaughter Ginger (the rebel who abandons Detroit and settles in Phoenix) and great-granddaughter Amy. The voices of these four women are quite different?Rose's primal and earthy; Helen's pathetic; Ginger's cool, irreverent, iconoclastic and questioning; Amy's tempered and mature beyond her years. Reading this novel is like leafing through a family photo album (one of Pietrzyk's favored motifs) except that, once you pick up this book, it's hard to put it down.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (July 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380799103
• ISBN-13: 978-0380799107
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #684,467 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving and well written story of family and tradition., March 3, 1999

By	[e-mail] Rex Clemmensen (Iowa City, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pears on a Willow Tree (Hardcover)

I was very impressed with Leslie Pietrzyk's Pears On A Willow Tree. It is a story of several generations of women from a Polish-Ameican family but it could just as well have been about people from almost any immigrant culture. The book is well written, well paced, and a joy to read. I read it in two evenings because I wanted to see how things turned out. Ms. Pietrzyk has a very good sense of dialouge and an economical style that adds to the enjoyment of the book. The characters and their relationships are real and well developed. Almost everyone I have talked to who has read the book said that they were reminded of their own family experiences. In that sense Ms. Pietrzyk has capture something universal. I hesitate to say more because I don't want to give away any of the story. Buy the book. You won't be disappointed.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So Glad I Bought This Book, It's One Of The Best I've Read, June 4, 2001

By	Barbara "Queen of her castle AND her home lib... (beautiful Charleston, SC) - See all my reviews

This story is about the closeness, the struggles, the traditions, and the Americanization of 4 generations of Polish women. This book brought back so many of my childhood memories of learning from my Polish "bubchi"/grandmother. I loved this book for that reason because my Polish mother passed away when I was 6 and my new stepmother a few years later would not allow any contact. I devoured this book! It was like a trip back in time. I forgot all about the traditional Christmas meal and the strict Catholic core. I can't say enough about this book. It's a great story to read and anyone can relate to it since America is made up of lots and lots of immigrants. A lot of the book is actually about the new generations wanting to "be different" and break away from tradition, wanting to be "themselves" and not just an extention of mom, grandmom, or great-grandmom. But it's hard to escape something when it's a part of a person and this book is about about that trip.

And to the author......Thank you for writing this book. You gave things back to me that I didn't even know I lost. I can hear my grandmother's broken English, I can smell her cooking, I can feel her love for me. Like the book says...I'm a Polish daughter.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ~Every Family~, December 21, 2002

By	Captain Kirk's girl "Captain Kirk's girl" (Sacramento, Ca USA) - See all my reviews

This generational study of a Polish family and the women and their daughters is a charmer. Easy to read,thought provoking and good character development. The Marchewka women are inseparable. They value the gathering of family and cooking traditional Polish foods. But as the story grows we find the newer generations culturally removed from thier mothers and grandmothers as Polish immigrants. A close look into family life in general, although this family is Polish by immigration the struggles and heartbreaks are really about "every" family. Highly recommend !!