The Ladies' Lending Library

by Janice Kulyk Keefer

Book Overview

"A deeply thoughtful, beautifully written novel." -- Washington Post Book World

A portrait of women caught between countries, cultures, and aspirations--a bittersweet tale, set in the 1960s, of mothers, daughters, friends, and lovers during one unforgettable summer

August, 1963: the year of the sensational release of Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, showcasing a passion too grand to be contained on the movie screen. The women of the Kalyna Beach cottage community, part of a group of first-generation Ukrainian Canadians, gather for gin and gossip, trading the current racy bestsellers among themselves as they seek a brief escape from the predictable rhythms of children and chores.

But dramatic change is coming this summer as innocence falters and the desire for change reaches a boiling point, threatening to disrupt the warm, sweet, heady days and the lives of parents and children, family and friends, forever.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061479071
• ISBN13: 9780061479076
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Lots of tertiary stories...

This book is fascinating. It's definitely "chick lit"--lots of interactions between women but also interactions between families (parents and kids and siblings and cousins and friends...). There's a few major themes but it's one of the tertiary stories that will move you and make you think. It's set among several Ukranian immigrants that live for the summer in cottages along a fictional lake in Ontario. Much of the action is related to the last two weeks of summer. You can definitely picture the women and kids and all that is going on. The cover photo is misleading--I don't think it's supposed to be the 39 year old main protagonist...and it doesn't really fit her 16 year old mother's helper (who is always in a bikini) either. If you want a haunting beach read and you're a little interested in immigrant stories in 60's Canada then this is the book.

Revisit The Books and Movies of 1963

The year is 1963, and the Ukrainian Canadian women of Kaluna Beach are preparing for their end-of-summer party. The conservative women spend their days managing the summer cottages, watching the children, and sharing "racy" books, slipped from hand to hand, hidden in brown paper dust jackets, and enjoyed when children and husbands are asleep. The readers of this unofficial library share their thoughts about the books and characters Friday nights over gin and tonics, while waiting for their husbands to make the long drive up from the city. This is also the summer of the movie /Cleopatra/, and the headline making affair between stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Books like /Lady Chatterley's Lover/, /Fanny Hill/ and /Valley of the Dolls/ all add to the temptations that these first-generation conservative women face when adapting to their new home in Canada. When one of the other women in their summer community begins her own affair, the reality of those temptations comes home to all of them. The multitude of different voices helps create the atmosphere, yet becomes distracting at times when it shifts too often. But, beyond that, Keefer has written a compelling tale of immigrant acculturation during a period when society as a whole was undergoing its own seismic shift.