Hilda and Pearl

by Alice Mattison

Book Overview

To Frances, an only child living in McCarthy-era Brooklyn, her mother, Hilda, and her aunt Pearl seem as if they have always been friends. Frances does not question the love between the two women until her father's job as a teacher is threatened by anti-Communism, just as Frances begins to learn about her family's past. Why does Hilda refer to her "first pregnancy," as if Frances wasn't her only child? Whose baby shoes are hidden in Hilda's dresser...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060936932
• ISBN13: 9780060936938
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.8" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A PRAISEWORTHY EPIC OF AMERICAN LIFE

Redemption and forgiveness may seem like out of date concepts to some people, but in Alice Mattison's resonantly true "Hilda and Pearl" they are the very stuff of life. "I forgave, Pearl, that was what it was," Hilda says. "I was embarrassed when the word came into my head. It didn't seem like something modern people did, forgiving." With penetrating simplicity, never missing the impact of daily life, Mattison chronicles the family's struggles. In lesser hands the tale could be maudlin; in this author's hands it is a praiseowrthy epic of American life. - Gail Cooke

sensitive and revealing treatment of friendship, forgiveness

Rarely is a friendship between two women as tested as that between Hilda and Pearl, the two sensitive and scarred sisters-in-law in the novel that bears their name. Novelist Alice Mattison has summoned her considerable talents and created a series of characters and conflicts so real and so intense that it is easy to forget the beauty of her narrative. "Hilda and Pearl" is a masterful work, one which reminds us of the beauty of friendship, the imperative of memory and the possibilities of forgiveness. Set in the grim repressive atmosphere of McCarthyism, with skillful flashbacks to earlier decades and pivotal events, the novel traces the resiliency of the human heart when bruised by betrayal, confusion and loss.The two featured protagonists develop a profound friendship, one rooted not only in the circumstance of marrying brothers, but nurtured by respect, need and fear. Hilda and Pearl mutually confront interrelated conflicts, weighty enough that most friendships would wither and die, and emerge with their integrity and sense of self intact. This is no easy task, as the women not only must face reciprocal recrimination but observe their husbands' relationship fracture as well. Burdened by a restive child and unsettled by a husband whose career is threatened by a witch-hunt mentality, Hilda searches for a sense of peace and place, elusive and ephemeral. Physically dissimilar, Pearl, whose long blonde hair and manifest physicality distinguish her, faces life without confidence or structure. If Hilda is acutely analytical, Pearl is intuitive and accepting. Hilda' sense of history contrasts with Pearl's ahistoric approach to life.Parallel to the two women's encounter with frayed trust and broken dreams, Nathan Levenson and Mike Lewis suffer a deterioration of their bond. Idealistic, patient and calm, Nathan ruefully observes his own demise after a brief association with communism in the 1930s. Reminding him of the futility of political change is his assimilation-bound brother, Mike, who changed his last name in order to further his own career. Angry, resolute and frustrated, Mike bears the full burden of betrayal, first by his wife and brother, then by his own broken dreams, and finally by his son, Simon.Mattison advances the action of her novel through pivotal emotional explorations made by Hilda and Nathan's daughter, Frances. Her persistent inquiry about a hidden pair of shoes becomes the string which, when pulled, unravels the secrets of the two households. The author deftly interweaves Frances' coming-of-age with her parents descent into sorrow, recrimination and resolution.There is no cheap grace in "Hilda and Pearl." Characters unflinchingly face the worst possible circumstances conspiring against loyalty, cohesion and trust. The sheer beauty of how a tested friendship emerges from the crucible of doubt, the generous spirit which animates the women's resiliency and the authentic notion of redemptive love make "Hilda and Pearl"

Read this book!

If your relationship with your best friend has survived rocky times, read this book; your experience of the love and friendship between women will be affirmed. If you want to remember the innoncence you had as a girl, read this book; Frances will let you visit with her childhood. This story is honestly told by the the unique voices of young Frances, who in her niavete fills in the holes of her family's story with her own childish fantasy, of her Aunt Pearl, who misplaces the intense love inside her, and of Hilda, Frances's mother, who teaches us that when love is stong enough, there is nothing that can't be forgiven. This is the story of a Jewish family, set in a New York City stuggling through the depression, grappling with Europe's facism, and touched by McCarthy's witch hunt for communists. Read this book; it is beautiful.