Three Daughters

Rating:
Summary: Sisterhood is powerful.
Review: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the cofounder of Ms. magazine and the author of eight works of nonfiction, has written her first novel. "Three Daughters" is about half-sisters who lead complicated and multi-faceted lives. Leah is an English professor and an ardent feminist who tends to be pedantic, opinionated and overbearing. Rachel, the mother of five, is a domestic diva with a deep interest in Jewish theology. Shoshanna is a nervous type. Like Chicken Little, she is forever afraid that the sky is about to fall.

Leah, Rachel, and Shoshanna have a stormy history, and Pogrebin demonstrates that sisterhood can be a strong bond as well as a source of resentment, envy, and conflict. Pogrebin gives these three women well-defined personalities and we see how they change over time. Illuminating flashbacks shed light on how their childhoods marked them for life.

Where Pogrebin falters is in her writing style and plot development. She indulges in melodramatic and overwrought language when understatement and subtlety would have been more effective. At a little under four hundred pages, the book goes on and on; less would have been more. The author's feminist agenda takes center stage here and she pushes it so hard that it throws the narrative out of balance. A novel should develop naturally rather than serve as a forum to deliver political statements. Finally, the book is loaded with more angst than is needed in one novel. Some of the themes in "Three Daughters" are long-buried family secrets and grudges, marriages on the rocks, child abuse, mental illness, mid-life crises, and Jewish rituals.

Who will enjoy this book? Those who like to read about dysfunctional individuals who make an effort to bond after years of estrangement may find "Three Daughters" poignant and meaningful. However, since I found this novel to be more tedious than entertaining, I do not recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Sisterhood is powerful.
Review: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the cofounder of Ms. magazine and the author of eight works of nonfiction, has written her first novel. "Three Daughters" is about half-sisters who lead complicated and multi-faceted lives. Leah is an English professor and an ardent feminist who tends to be pedantic, opinionated and overbearing. Rachel, the mother of five, is a domestic diva with a deep interest in Jewish theology. Shoshanna is a nervous type. Like Chicken Little, she is forever afraid that the sky is about to fall.

Leah, Rachel, and Shoshanna have a stormy history, and Pogrebin demonstrates that sisterhood can be a strong bond as well as a source of resentment, envy, and conflict. Pogrebin gives these three women well-defined personalities and we see how they change over time. Illuminating flashbacks shed light on how their childhoods marked them for life.

Where Pogrebin falters is in her writing style and plot development. She indulges in melodramatic and overwrought language when understatement and subtlety would have been more effective. At a little under four hundred pages, the book goes on and on; less would have been more. The author's feminist agenda takes center stage here and she pushes it so hard that it throws the narrative out of balance. A novel should develop naturally rather than serve as a forum to deliver political statements. Finally, the book is loaded with more angst than is needed in one novel. Some of the themes in "Three Daughters" are long-buried family secrets and grudges, marriages on the rocks, child abuse, mental illness, mid-life crises, and Jewish rituals.

Who will enjoy this book? Those who like to read about dysfunctional individuals who make an effort to bond after years of estrangement may find "Three Daughters" poignant and meaningful. However, since I found this novel to be more tedious than entertaining, I do not recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Pogrebin has crafted a beautiful, often heartbreaking, novel
Review: Perhaps it goes without saying that every loving parent does the best they can to make their child's life healthy, secure and happy. Yet, the actions, decisions and words of parents often have very different effects than intended. Children grow up in response to their parents and to the experiences of their childhood. This is at once obvious and subtle. Psychology texts (and therapists' offices) are full of analysis of childhood, its environment and experiences; it's joys and trauma. And artists, poets and writers of fiction also examine and explore childhood to understand adult patterns of behavior and thought. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, renowned activist, feminist and author of non-fiction, has produced in THREE DAUGHTERS, her first work of fiction, an outstanding novel that delves into the childhood of the Wasserman sisters and finds them, in adulthood, wrestling with the issues that have defined them since their earliest years.

Leah, Rachel and Shoshanna are three sisters who are very different from each other. However, all three are products of their childhood and are rebelling against it. Leah is Sam Wasserman's daughter from his first marriage. That marriage dissolved as he lost his wife to alcoholism and mental illness and almost lost Leah as well. Leah meets Rachel at boarding school where she was sent so that her mother, Esther, could pick up the pieces from the abusive marriage she left. Rachel and Leah bond and arrange for Sam and Esther to meet. Not only do they meet but they soon fall in love and marry. Leah and Rachel are sure they now have the happy family they have always wanted. But not all of the family's problems are healed with this merge. In order to present a respectable image to his new congregation, Rabbi Wasserman and Esther tell everyone that Rachel is their daughter and Leah is a niece. By the time Shoshanna is born, this lie, coupled with traumatic early childhood experiences, have damaged the family in ways not easily remedied. Many years later, as Sam Wasserman plans to return to the U.S. to accept an award, his daughters get ready for the floodgate of emotions his arrival will open. And, as their lives are transforming with middle age, they find that they need each other more than ever.

Pogrebin has crafted a beautiful, often heartbreaking, novel. Unique in its depth of emotion and honesty, it is a novel unafraid to allow its characters to be flawed and occasionally quite weak. Despite their weaknesses, or perhaps because of them, the Wasserman family is more than likeable; they are understandable and sympathetic. Pogrebin's respect for her characters, coupled with the intensity of the story, makes for an enjoyable read. The journey of the Wasserman family reveals much about families in general; how the smallest words and actions can have the greatest impact and how what may be understood as "the right thing to do" can have devastating consequences. However, despite the damage done or perceived by each Wasserman daughter, they are survivors who, like their parents, do the best they can at each milestone. Admittedly the last quarter of the novel drags towards the just less than predictable conclusion. Still, THREE DAUGHTERS is powerful, complex and immensely readable. Addressing issues of body image, sexuality, motherhood, marriage, religion, career, self-esteem, personal politics, gender equality and many others, Pogrebin is aware of the complexity of women's public and private lives.

True to her feminist ideals, Pogrebin has presented the lives of middle-aged women with honesty and compassion, showing the joys and the sorrows. We see Leah, Rachel and Shoshanna in transition and their strength is awesome. What a joy to read a work of fiction from a woman who has inspired and spoken to so many through her non-fiction.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Rating:
Summary: Familial Ties
Review: Pogrebin has written a novel of familial ties, ties that bind, unbind and ties that haven't quite made the transformation.

Three Jewish sisters, born of the same father struggle for identity (internal, external and religious/cultural), struggle to keep a family together in the only way they know how, whether it be positive or negative, it is the way they have learned from their parental life lessons.

Each sister is unique, within their sameness for identity search and familial bonds. One cannot understand her father, and is a rebel rouser, an antagonistical feminist, who is stuck in time and cannot seem to move forward on her life journey, one is family-oriented, living for her family, one has a career and manages her family at the same time.

Through Pogrebin's subtleties, we see that the three different personalities, in the end, have similar substance, and are more alike than they think or would like to admit.

I enjoyed reading the Jewish journeys each of them took, their treks through time, backward and forward, to learn forgiveness, to learn commitment to family, and to embrace each other and their Jewishness.

Rating:
Summary: deeply touching
Review: Taking a break from my usual murder/courtroom reads, I picked up this treasure at the library. What a find! I was immediately absorbed into the lives of the sisters and found their personal growths totally inspiring. I couldn't put it down yet didn't want it to end. I can't wait for Pogrebin's next novel. Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: Powerful writing
Review: This book is written with such compelling prose it was hard to put down. However, there were some long lapses into feminist dogma that a few times slipped over the characters' thoughts and felt preachy. That said, I found it a believable, palpable story, strongly character-driven, well done. In ways I'm not sure the author intended, it was informative, giving insight into motivations of the radical women's movement's roots. Not that I blame or wish to turn back the clock, but I feel I've met these women in real life, especially Leah, and wondered whence came her firey conviction. I applaud the author in not painting any of the women as perfect, yet sympathetic and understandable at every turn. There is much talk supporting liberal politics, cheering the far Left, denigrating conservative standpoints without exploring them that at times I tired of hearing. The rallies held to promulgate the beginning women's lib views were described exactly as I remember them, fraught with turmoil and pot smoke, real issues screaming to be heard over the din of radical demonstrations that became connected, then associated with them. Those ideologies stand as framework for the characters' personalities. Interesting. Vivid prose. Precise description. Worth the "eye time".

Rating:
Summary: Great characters in a weak plot
Review: This story is unusual in that the characters are more interesting than the plot. It was the three sisters, their lives, habits, and nuances that kept me reading. Leah's hardcore feminism and eclectic lifestyle was the most interesting of all. Even Rachel, the most boring of the sisters, had another, deeper side to her personality.

However, this story does have it's major flaws. First of all, I read eagerly to find out the cause of the antagonism between Leah and her father, and when I FINALLY did, I thought, "So what!" I was expecting something worth all the build up, and it definitely was a big let down. Rachel got rather annoying with all her "factoids" and there were a lot of loose ends about Leah's family at the end. I think this author is very talented at creating characters, but needs to work a little on her plotting skills.

Rating:
Summary: Great characters in a weak plot
Review: This story is unusual in that the characters are more interesting than the plot. It was the three sisters, their lives, habits, and nuances that kept me reading. Leah's hardcore feminism and eclectic lifestyle was the most interesting of all. Even Rachel, the most boring of the sisters, had another, deeper side to her personality.

However, this story does have it's major flaws. First of all, I read eagerly to find out the cause of the antagonism between Leah and her father, and when I FINALLY did, I thought, "So what!" I was expecting something worth all the build up, and it definitely was a big let down. Rachel got rather annoying with all her "factoids" and there were a lot of loose ends about Leah's family at the end. I think this author is very talented at creating characters, but needs to work a little on her plotting skills.

Rating:
Summary: engaging character study
Review: To celebrate his ninetieth birthday, Rabbi Sam Wasserman returns to New York City from Israel. Sam demands that his three daughters attend his gala event even though he has had some differences with them over the years.

His oldest daughter Leah from Sam's first marriage, though sixtyish, still retains feelings that he abandoned her five decades ago when he remarried. Though successful as a left wing English professor with a community commitment, she still desperately wants to reconcile with her father, but can she forgive him?

His second daughter Rachel is actually not of his seed having come from the first husband of his second wife, but is the one who embraces the religion with a fervor that matches Sam. Her world is changing from pampered trophy wife to divorced seminary student if she has the courage to go for what she desires.

The youngest sibling Shoshanna believes she can accomplish almost anything, but fears failure of achieving what she most wants in life. She desires a reconciliation of her entire family.

THREE DAUGHTERS is an engaging character study that digs deep into the contemporary Jewish philosophies that compete amidst the religion today. Each daughter represents a corner of the triangle of Judaism (community, Torah, and family). The strong story line is at its best when the squabbles between the three women provide the reader with a deep look into the religion, but loses momentum when the plot becomes a rallying cry for modern Judaism.

Harriet Klausner