Alice Hoffman’s new novel, The Marriage of Opposites, begins and ends as if in a dream. Telling the fictionalized life of Rachel Pizzarro, the mother of the famous Impressionist Camille Pizzarro, the story unwinds slowly—beginning with Rachel in her youth, growing up in a strict Jewish community on the island of St. Thomas in the early 1800s. Rachel is a headstrong girl who becomes a fierce woman and mother of eleven, initially forced into an arranged marriage at a very young age. But when her older husband dies, she soon falls in love with her husband’s nephew, and her defiance and strength to be with the one she loves manages to supersede her community’s desire for discretion and adherence to custom.
Continue reading.
For more on Jewish books, check out our
page.
No comments:
Post a Comment