A Century Remembered
Miron, Susan
A Century Remembered America and /• Short Stones by American Jewish Women Writers Edited by Joyce Antler Beacon Press, 1990 355 pp , S19 95 Reviewed by Susan Miron '*Who am I? What am I? What do...
...Harry, the elderly man, meanwhile becomes overwhelmed with pain as he dredges up old memones to write a piece for his teacher-friend, "What I Never Told Anyone...
...it is so excellent that perhaps this will be the last time women's stones will have to have a book of their own Susan Miron is a writer and concert harpist living in Boston...
...Comprised of 23 stories written between 1911 and 1988, America and lis the first historically based anthology of American Jewish women's short fiction...
...Wider Glimpses: 1960-1979" showcases two writers better known for their novels—Johanna Kaplan (O My America1 Harper & Row, 1980) and Joanne Greenberg (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Henry Holt, 1964...
...Antin's proto-feminist tale of a girl who impresses her rabbi so much that he agrees to take her as a student—something quite rare—is particularly fascinating from a socio-his-toncal viewpoint "Troubles in the New World 19301959," section two, reflects the identification many Jewish writers felt with the poor and oppressed Disenchantment with radical politics in the 1940s and 1950s allowed many Jewish writers to return to writing about Jewish topics with Jewish characters Particularly striking is Tess Slesmger's "Missis Flinders," a chilling account of a snobbish, intellectual Jewish couple returning home after the wife's abortion...
...A Century Remembered America and /• Short Stones by American Jewish Women Writers Edited by Joyce Antler Beacon Press, 1990 355 pp , S19 95 Reviewed by Susan Miron '*Who am I? What am I? What do I want with my life...
...The literary evidence assembled here makes it apparent that the present explosion of superb fiction by American Jewish women did not arise ex nihilo While Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth were getting most of the attention, women were nevertheless writing stories and novels which spoke eloquently of equally important, though often different, concerns America and I is divided chronologically into four parts, each reflecting the concerns and the Zeitgeist of its era...
...This book is worth buying for this story alone America and I is a treasure house of memorable stories It is not only important as a sociological and historical book...
...Joyce Antler, former director of women's studies and now teaching Amencan studies at Brandeis University, has done a magnificent job both in her choice of stones and in her lucid introduction...
...Ozick's hypnotic and ultimately catastrophic story about a "magical shawl" that hides, feeds and thus temporarily keeps a baby alive is now published (by Knopf) together with its longer sequel, the equally remarkable "Rosa...
...Shattering illusions and ending secrecy between parents and their children provide anguish and horror in these stones In Leslea Newman's bittersweet story, "A Letter to Harvey Milk," an unlikely yet extremely touching friendship is forged between a lesbian writing instructor and an elderly man m her class He is confused—how could his teacher's parents have cut her off so totally eight years ago simply because she told them she was homosexual' Should he adopt her, he wonders' Newman helps us see how revealing our true selves can cause pam to those we never intended to hurt...
...All that preceded it seems in contrast outclassed, vaguely dated and almost trivial...
...The first section, "From the Ghetto and Beyond 1900-1929," features stories by Mary Antin, Edna Ferber, Anzia Yezierska and Fannie Hurst These stones of Amenca as seen through immigrants' eyes are a rich addition to the picture of America at that time de-scnbed in the novels of Abraham Cahan and Henry Roth...
...He writes, instead, a brief farewell note' "I'm too old for this crazy writing I remember too much, the pen is like a knife twisting in my heart...
...Cynthia Ozick's utterly stunning 'The Shawl" opens this section With this brief masterpiece, we read the first world-class story in this book...
...Where is America' What is this wilderness in which I'm lost'" These questions, asked by the immigrant heroine of Anzia Yezierska's 1922 story, "America and I," are among the central questions posed in different guises throughout America and I: Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers...
...The four stories here tell of comfortably settled, fairly affluent young Jewish women...
...Particularly touching is Gloria Goldreich's "Z'mira," in which a young American woman living in Jerusalem befriends her 16-year-old Moroccan maid The final section, "The Past as Present The 1980s," features 10 remarkable stories that alone Would have been a major contribution to Jewish, American or women's literature...
...Instead of political strife, family strife takes center stage Judging and misjudging one's parents suddenly seems to occur in every story...
...Many of these 10 last stories concern themselves with the hold of memory and the past...
Vol. 16 • February 1991 • No. 1
