As Close to Us as Breathing

Posted on 11 May 2018 by Elizabeth Poliner

In 1948, a small stretch of the Woodmont, Connecticut shoreline, affectionately named Bagel Beach, has long been a summer destination for Jewish families Here sisters Ada, Vivie, and Bec assemble at their beloved family cottage, with children in tow and weekend only husbands who arrive each Friday in time for the Sabbath meal.During the weekdays, freedom reigns Ada, the family beauty, relaxes and grows playful, unimpeded by her rule driven, religious husband Vivie, once terribly wronged by her sister, is now the family diplomat and an increasingly inventive chef Unmarried Bec finds herself forced to choose between the family centric life she s always known and a passion filled life with the married man with whom she s had a secret years long affair.But when a terrible accident occurs on the sisters watch, a summer of hope and self discovery transforms into a lifetime of atonement and loss for members of this close knit clan Seen through the eyes of Molly, who was twelve years old when she witnessed the accident, this is the story of a tragedy and its aftermath, of expanding lives painfully collapsed Can Molly, decades after the event, draw from her aunt Bec s hard won wisdom and free herself from the burden that destroyed so many others Elizabeth Poliner is a masterful storyteller, a brilliant observer of human nature, and in As Close to Us as Breathing she has created an unforgettable meditation on grief, guilt, and the boundaries of identity and love New Read [ As Close to Us as Breathing ] author [ Elizabeth Poliner ] – kino-fada.fr 2.5 The writing is measured and lovely, and I appreciated the picture of late 1940s life for a Jewish family, but the pace was killing me this is set in one summer, but with constant flashbacks and flash forwards to other family stories, such that although we learn on page 1 that a character has died, even by the 60% mark where I finally gave up I still had not learned how Also, the narrator is telling everything in retrospect from 1999, but there is too little about her life at that prese 2.5 The writing is measured and lovely, and I appreciated the picture of late 1940s life for a Jewish family, but the pace was killing me this is set in one summer, but with...Something about the setting of this book reminds me of Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume The Jewish family spending their summers on a beach in New England sometime after the war, maybe However, unlike any book by Judy Blume, this book was like a badly sewn quilt lots of pieces sloppily held together, with no way to warm you.The story kind of dripped along There was nothing wrong with it, and at times I was immersed in the characters However, the entire novel felt like a Something about the setting of this book reminds me of Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume The Jewish family spending their summers on a beach in New England sometime after the war, maybe However, unlike any book by Judy Blume, this book was like a badly sewn quilt lots of pieces sloppily held together, with no way to warm you.The story kind of d...Usually I enjoy a novel that moves back and forth in time, compelling me not just by what will happen, but by how it will happen I m also a sucker for a coming of age narrator, a historic setting and some Jewish family drama So this book has all the right components and it s good, memorable, but it never quite clicked into full gear The timeline jumps kept me from sinking into the story and Molly s point of view limited my ability to truly connect with the characters.Certainly a good bea...Strong, very strong Rich use of contemporary devices such as opening with the death of a character Chronicle of a Death Foretold or Donna Tartt s The Secret History and spiraling chronology, accumulation of fragmented details a place, a family, a culture and multi focality with coda in the narrator s present I can see that some readers were irked or bewildered but I think this is a lovely, literary, teacher s choice for Jewish American Lit or Jewish Women ...I just plain didn t like this book.There were so many inconsistencies The story takes place in 1948 At least the main part of it The author jumps between the 1930s and 1990s, and everywhere in between, making it difficult to follow sometimes.One minute the characters are entrenched in Jewish culture, observing holidays, old traditions, and the next are embracing progressive thinking Just too surreal During the 1950s, people seldom divorced, much less, the woman going back to her maiden na I just plain didn t like this book.There were so many inconsistencies The story takes place in 1948 At least the main part of it The author jumps between the 1930s and 1990s, and everywhere in between, making it difficult to follow sometimes.One minute the characters are entrenched in Jewish culture, observ...As Close to Us as Breathing is the story of three sisters who spend every summer at their inherited beach house in a Jewish enclave on the coast of Connecticut The story begins during the summer of 1948, one that ends in tragedy But spiraling out from the central tragedy are the stories that make up this family Some look back into the past, some jump into the future, but all are moving, sensitive portraits of humans in times of happiness and pain altogether providing a gorgeous meditation on As Close to Us as Breathing is the story of three sisters who spend every summer at their inherited beach house in a Jewish enclave on the coast of Connecticut The story begins during the summer of 1948, one that ends in tragedy But spiraling out from the central tragedy are the stories that make up this family Some look back into the pas...This is a multi generational novel about a Jewish family and a how a tragedy affects all of their lives through the years The novel begins in 1948 as the women and children of the family go to their cottage at the beach in Connecticut for the summer their husbands only come up on weekends The family consists of three sisters and their children The reader is told very early on that a tragedy occurs that summer that affects everyone but it isn t until very late in the book that the tragedy is This is a multi generational novel about a Jewish family and a how a tragedy affects all of their lives through the years The novel begins in 1948 as t...This is a multigenerational story about a Jewish family The setting was a summer cottage in Woodmont on the Connecticut shoreline I enjoyed the book but felt the characters were not brought to life Nina would get lost in the pages of a book, I could relate to that I thought the accident was mentioned too early in the story, it s at 68% before we know what happened, a lot of filler in between The accident shapes the life s of the children once they become adults and the adults also Grief is This is a multigenerational story about a Jewish family The setting was a summer cottage in Woodmont on the Connecticut shoreline I enjoyed the book but felt the characters were not brought to life Nina would get lost in the pages of a book, I could relate to that I thought the accident was mentioned too early in the story, it s at 68% before we know what happened, a lot of filler in between The accident shapes the life s of th...The exquisite writing of Poliner is what saved this book for me Everyone in this multigenerational story seems to be so very sad except for little Davy And even at their happier moments there was sadness There is a tragedy that is mentioned in the beginning of the story and throughout the book the reader is given bits and pieces as to what happened and how one incident pertained to all the characters involved Not being Jewish I learned a lot about Jewish life, customs and traditions in 1948 The exquisite writing of Poliner is what saved this book for me Everyone in this multigenerational story seems to be so very sad except for little Davy And even at their happier moments there was sadness There i...The main theme of the story is atonement and the story is written with a lot of feeling There is a strong sense of melancholy throughout the book, but it s just the part of the story, it does not detract from the story in any way It makes it richer It s like the personality of the family coming through the pages The story takes place in 1948 along the Connecticut shore, town of Woodmont, but a place referred to as Bagel Beach , because it is the summer getaway for Jewish families The autho The main theme of the story is atonement and the story is written with a lot of feeling There is a strong sense of melancholy throughout the book, but it s just the part of the story, it does not detract from the story in any way It makes it richer It s like the personality...

English
11 May 2018

Elizabeth Poliner