The Wholeness of a Broken Heart: A Novel

by Katie Singer

Book Overview

An evocative debut novel chronicles the lives and fortunes of four generations of Jewish women, as their stories span two continents, from Eastern Europe to modern-day Cleveland, and one young woman, Hannah Felber, struggles to resolve her troubled relationship with her mother. Reprint.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573228311
• ISBN13: 9781573228312
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 435 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.0" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Takes the heart by surprise

At first I resented the intrusion of the other voices. I was so entranced by Hannah and Celia. I loved the writing -- on every page there was a surprise for me, a turn-of-phrase that sent me in brand new directions or just delighted. Hannah and her pimples (she gives acne a good name) are so vivid. She is touchable, and she fulfills the requirement I have whenever I read a novel (one that often doesn't get met): to make my heart burst for the character. Gradually, I surrendered to the other characters too.

"This one is wonderful."

I'm always drawn to Jewish family sagas, maybe because my own grandparents died when I was too young to ask them for their stories. So at a recent Jewish book festival I loaded up my shopping basket with half a dozen novels. When the cashier reached The Wholeness of a Broken Heart she looked up and told me, "This one is wonderful."She was right.Katie Singer has done a fantastic job of creating four generations of Jewish women who are recognizable, yet never stereotypical. In fact, Hannah's mother, Celia, who inexplicably rejects her daughter once she has left home for college, is the virtual opposite of the stereotypical Jewish mother who never wants to untie the apron strings.The novel is narrated by four generations of women, living and dead -- all in present tense, which some readers dislike, but which I find compelling. The heart of the story though is its exploration of the relationship between Celia and Hannah. The stories told by Hannah's grandmother and great-grandmothers, even though they covered a century of Jewish history, from Cossacks to the Holocaust, seemed to me to be aimed primarily at discovering what went wrong between mother and daughter. To be more precise, the book seems to center on what went wrong with Celia that she could become such a terrible mother. Her daughter, Hannah, might be considered the protagonist, but it was Celia who stoked my curiosity.Despite the explanations offered for Celia's behavior, I never found her a sympathetic character, and of all the characters in this book her actions seemed hardest to swallow (as another reader reviewer mentioned). On the other hand, I found Hannah both believable and sympathetic. True, she is quiet and introspective; very few writers aren't. And nearly all draw on their own family stories for material. I was rather surprised by reader reviews that said Hannah lived the "life of Riley," and needed to "get a life." She has a life, a quiet writer's life, living modestly on a teacher's salary, walking to work rather than buying a car, devoting time to her students and to her own poetry, and stretching a roast chicken into a week's worth of leftover dinners. Would it somehow be more of a life if she spent her time writing ad copy, eating fast food and running up credit card bills?A couple of reviewers, both reader and editorial, also felt the story was contrived. As a writer of novels myself, I know that to create interesting, believable characters and then to have a storyline flow naturally from their behavior is a LOT harder than it looks. Leaving aside the fact that any novel is a contrivance by its author -- characters are fictional people after all -- I found very few places in this novel where the characters' behavior seemed to be dictated by the needs of the plot rather than by their background, upbringing or personality. The only instance I did find, in fact, is when Hannah decides to put off moving to New Mexico to be with the guy she's in love with, electing to remain p

A masterful tale of four generations

Not since Erica Jong's book Inventing Memory have I enjoyed a multigenerational tale as much as The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer. In her debut novel, Ms. Singer who was inspired by family stories presents her readers with four generations of Jewish women spanning two continents beginning in the late 1800's. Told in the voices of the four women of this family, the book reflects these women's own stories set against historical events. Central to the plot is the relationship between the modern day and difficult mother Celia and her dutiful daughter Hannah. And it is Hannah that the stories will someday belong as she begins collecting them as a way of understanding her mother.This is a moving book which captures the readers attention particularly if one is from an immigrant background. Interspersed in the narrative are Yiddish expression which loosely translated provide the reader with a language rich in humor and wisdom. In addition I highly recommend this book to those with a Jewish background whose families may have experienced similar stories and histories. And for those unfamiliar with this culture and traditions of Judaism, it is an opportunity to learn of a way of life which in some respects is sadly gone but in other ways is very much alive.Ienjoyed this book so much that I now fook forward to reading future works by Katie Singer. She is a gifted writer who has provided readers with an excellent first novel. May she have a long and happy life and as we say, "May she have blessings on her head."

Do yourself a favor: Read this book!

This is a remarkably written, mesmerizing, magical novel by a gifted author. Katie Singer's prose is luxurious, her perspective compassionate. You'll want to read this book again and again -- and then share it with others.

Survival and strength

Katie Singer has written an amazingly beautiful book, lovely and hard-hitting, intense, wise, intelligent. She has created complex characters who tell stories both historical and familial (matriarchal); this is a novel of survival.