Blum’s sense of history is impeccable
THE LOST FAMILY JENNA BLUM Harper Paperbacks Review: Barbara Spaanderman
JENNA Blum was born to write. The
Lost Family is a saga that moves from the horrors of Nazi Germany to New York and Minnesota.
The main character is a German Jew called Peter Rushkin. He marries a gentile girl and they have two daughters. Masha, his wife is more astute than Peter as to what is happening to the Jews. He hopes that as his children are half Aryan and he is married to a gentile, the Germans would treat him the same.
He has an ongoing argument with Masha. They had to get out, she said. It was too dangerous, he said. They had to leave.
“They had to stay. The insanity will end; the outside world will realise what is going on and put a stop to it.” But the outside world remains that and Peter loses his wife and daughters in the horrific rounding up of the Jews while he escapes.
In New York, Peter is taken in by his family, uncle Sol and aunt Ruth.
Peter sets up a restaurant named after his wife, and his backer is uncle Sol who has other purposes for the restaurant. In the 1960s, Peter finds solace in cooking where he can stave off the awful guilt he feels in not having listened to Masha.
But he meets the young beautiful model, June Bouquet, from Minnesota. They have a relationship and she falls pregnant which forces him into marriage. It is a functional marriage, but June always feels Peter is not truly in the relationship. She asks him to see a therapist , but he does not. In turn she has a relationship with her tennis coach, which makes her feel guilty because Peter has had such a tough time.
Meanwhile, their daughter, Elsbeth, grows up like a typical teenager in the 1980s.
She learns from her closest friend the art of kissing and the right moves to pick up the guy they hope will be the one to take away her virginity.
The object of Elsbeth’s infatuation is a photographer whom she thinks gives the “come on” by sharing with her his ability to see words and numbers in colour. He is a superb and professional photographer, but because he photographs young nubile girls, he is accused of being a pornographer.
Unfortunately, Elsbeth has picked a man who does not engage with her. She works tirelessly to try to pique his interest, losing weight which is finally noticed by her parents who are so involved in their own worlds they tend to overlook Elsbeth’s needs. Blum’s sense of history is impeccable, and anyone who has lived from the 60s to the 80s will recognise the people, the music, the restaurant fare and the clothing.