Rating: 
Summary: WHEN THE CUP OF PAIN RUNNETH OVER...
Review: ...it will manifest itself differently for every person who experiences it. In the case of young Eva - Elizabeth Graver's engagingly and vividly drawn heroine - the manifestations include a love/hate/fear-of-loss relationship with her mother Miriam, general adolescent frustration and mistrust of the world in general, and shoplifting. All of Graver's characters in this wonderful novel are well-drawn and emotionally full - and making them even more believable and compelling is the fact that all of them are very far from perfect.As if simply passing into adolescence from childhood isn't difficult enough, Eva is coping with the fact that her dad - whom she remembers as the perfect father, but only in briefly-imaged wisps of memory - died when she was only six. Her mother has told her from the time of his death that he suffered a heart attack - which is one of those amazingly widespread half-lies with which we as human beings become all too familiar as we pass through this life. Eva accepts the story on the surface - but something within her tells her that there is more here than is being revealed to her. Eva and her mother live in New York City at the beginning of the story - a single mom striving valiantly to raise a daughter in a less-than-ideal environment. Her mom's best friend is an Indian woman named Ratha who lives in the apartment on the floor below - and Ratha and Mahesh's daughter Charu is Eva's closest pal. As Eva begins to approach adolescence, she begins to evince troubling behavior - the shoplifting mentioned above, plus a tendency to argue more and more aggressively with Miriam. After several episodes of being caught stealing, Miriam is at her wits' end - and the decision is made that a change of environment might be the best thing for both of them. Pouring over an atlas one evening, they settle on the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York - and they pull up what roots they have acquired and make the move. Eva is bored stiff living in the country. She knows no other children her age, and the woman hired by her mom to baby-sit her (the fact of which angers Eva even further) is more inclined to sit in a chair and snore the afternoon away than to spend any quality time with her young charge. Eva begins to explore the area on a second-hand bike that her mom buys for her - and she makes an interesting discovery. Cycling down a dusty country road one day, she comes across a card table set up with several jaws of honey - along with a home-made sign indicating a price, and a small lockbox with a slot for payment. Tempted to steal the honey, she holds back at first - then her curiosity gets the better of her, and she sneaks onto the property behind the card table, and discovers a row of beehives. Eva soon meets Burl, the owner of the property and the hives - one of the gentlest (if flawed - he IS human, after all) characters I've run across in some time. Burl is annoyed at first that his privacy has been breached - but he soon warms to this strange, strong-willed young girl. He senses something about her - he senses her pain, he senses her strength, and he senses her need for a friend. The unlikely and uncommon friendship that develops between these two is both poignant and sweet - it reminds me a bit of the friendship between young Clara Winter and Georg Kominsky in Alison McGhee's unforgettable novel SHADOW BABY. It's a completely believable, generation-spanning bond that they share - and it's a joy to behold. Through the course of THE HONEY THIEF, Elizabeth Graver leads the reader through the trials, sorrows and joys of these characters' lives - and down the sometimes rough road of memory. She does so with grace, and with a total respect for these characters - and she shows an understanding for the human spirit, and the pain it can endure, that will touch the readers' hearts.
Rating:
Summary: WHEN THE CUP OF PAIN RUNNETH OVER...
Review: ...it will manifest itself differently for every person who experiences it. In the case of young Eva - Elizabeth Graver's engagingly and vividly drawn heroine - the manifestations include a love/hate/fear-of-loss relationship with her mother Miriam, general adolescent frustration and mistrust of the world in general, and shoplifting. All of Graver's characters in this wonderful novel are well-drawn and emotionally full - and making them even more believable and compelling is the fact that all of them are very far from perfect. As if simply passing into adolescence from childhood isn't difficult enough, Eva is coping with the fact that her dad - whom she remembers as the perfect father, but only in briefly-imaged wisps of memory - died when she was only six. Her mother has told her from the time of his death that he suffered a heart attack - which is one of those amazingly widespread half-lies with which we as human beings become all too familiar as we pass through this life. Eva accepts the story on the surface - but something within her tells her that there is more here than is being revealed to her. Eva and her mother live in New York City at the beginning of the story - a single mom striving valiantly to raise a daughter in a less-than-ideal environment. Her mom's best friend is an Indian woman named Ratha who lives in the apartment on the floor below - and Ratha and Mahesh's daughter Charu is Eva's closest pal. As Eva begins to approach adolescence, she begins to evince troubling behavior - the shoplifting mentioned above, plus a tendency to argue more and more aggressively with Miriam. After several episodes of being caught stealing, Miriam is at her wits' end - and the decision is made that a change of environment might be the best thing for both of them. Pouring over an atlas one evening, they settle on the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York - and they pull up what roots they have acquired and make the move. Eva is bored stiff living in the country. She knows no other children her age, and the woman hired by her mom to baby-sit her (the fact of which angers Eva even further) is more inclined to sit in a chair and snore the afternoon away than to spend any quality time with her young charge. Eva begins to explore the area on a second-hand bike that her mom buys for her - and she makes an interesting discovery. Cycling down a dusty country road one day, she comes across a card table set up with several jaws of honey - along with a home-made sign indicating a price, and a small lockbox with a slot for payment. Tempted to steal the honey, she holds back at first - then her curiosity gets the better of her, and she sneaks onto the property behind the card table, and discovers a row of beehives. Eva soon meets Burl, the owner of the property and the hives - one of the gentlest (if flawed - he IS human, after all) characters I've run across in some time. Burl is annoyed at first that his privacy has been breached - but he soon warms to this strange, strong-willed young girl. He senses something about her - he senses her pain, he senses her strength, and he senses her need for a friend. The unlikely and uncommon friendship that develops between these two is both poignant and sweet - it reminds me a bit of the friendship between young Clara Winter and Georg Kominsky in Alison McGhee's unforgettable novel SHADOW BABY. It's a completely believable, generation-spanning bond that they share - and it's a joy to behold. Through the course of THE HONEY THIEF, Elizabeth Graver leads the reader through the trials, sorrows and joys of these characters' lives - and down the sometimes rough road of memory. She does so with grace, and with a total respect for these characters - and she shows an understanding for the human spirit, and the pain it can endure, that will touch the readers' hearts.
Rating:
Summary: A girl's reconciliation with adulthood
Review: A mature, realistic portrait of a broken family's slow drift toward a genuine home -- a widow and her daughter relocate from the city to a rural outpost. Wandering the country, the girl discovers a bee keeper's life. A vivid sense of place suffuses the novel's shifting location, from gritty East Village blocks filled with Greek Orthodox churches and wafting cumin curries to the green and gold countryside buzzing with metaphor. Graver "gets" the narrow but sharp comprehension of childhood, as in the young girl's terrifying first encounter with a faceless beekeeper lost in a blur of smoke and netting.
Rating: 
Summary: A slice of life (topped with honey, natch)
Review: Elizabeth Graver, The Honey Thief (Hyperion, 1999) There is quite a difference between the novel where nothing happens at all and the minimal novel, where small things happen, but due to the lack of bigger things happening around them, the small things take on a significance they would not otherwise normally have. There are far too many examples of the former type to list; Elizabeth Graver's fine novel The Honey Thief is an excellent example of the latter. Sick of New York City, widowed paralegal Miriam Baruch takes her eleven-year-old daughter Eva out to Finger Lakes country for a bit of rest, relaxation, and rehab; Eva has developed a rather nasty habit of stealing things. Eva develops a relationship with a local beekeeper (that her mother doesn't know about) while her mother is off developing relationships of her own. As the book unfolds, we alternate scenes of present-day life for Eva with her mother's recollections about the decline and untimely death of Eva's father. Despite the way it sounds, this doesn't set off the dysfunctional-family-novel alarm bells. Being a single parent having trouble coping doesn't necessarily put you into dysfunction territory (far more dysfunctional are those novels where a couple of idiots stay together "for the kids" and end up doing said kids more harm than good; I don't think I need to provide examples here, you've all read a few, no doubt). I'd hate to think readers were feeling reluctant to pick this up because it smacks of the Oprahesque. At its heart, it's a novel about just getting along in life. Questions aren't answered, loose ends abound, people are just plain messy, and the whole thing feels perfectly natural. You'd think that in the thirty years since the slice-of-life novel came into vogue, it would have gotten boring. Thankfully, this is not the case. There are far more than eight million stories in the naked city, and some of them are told by writers as good as Graver. May their numbers increase. ****
Rating:
Summary: Excelent Story - Fine Novel
Review: Eva is a honey thief - but not the only one, because isn't Burl, the beekeeper, stealing honey from the hives as well? In Elizabeth Graver's excelent novel The Honey Thief, everyone is stealing a little something: Eva acts out as a shop-lifter, Burl steals snatches of real life from his unavailable woman friend, Alice, and Miram has stolen the ugly truth about Eva's father. All of them must relinquish their loot. The novel unfolds beautifully and avoids the pat ending. A great read!
Rating:
Summary: A honey of a story
Review: Eva, 11 years-old, is uprooted from the only home she has ever known to live out in the country by Five-Fingers Lake. She knew that it was because she was caught shop-lifting for the fourth time when they moved ~~ it was just her and her mother. This is Eva's story and friendship with a reclusive beekeeper who lives down the road. This is also a story about Miriam, her mother, and a story about her father, Francis. Miriam fears for Eva's future and was secretive about the real reason why Eva's father died. For awhile there, both characters have lost one another ~~ drifted apart through the years. Then they reunite in this country town ~~ after Eva suffers an accident. Burl, the beekeeper, is also a part of the story too ~~ it was through his bees that mother and daughter find their way back to one another. This is a lyrical book. Very well-written and engrossing. It is also a haunting book ~~ I find myself thinking of all of the characters and how much they represent us all. I have never read any of Graver's books, but I really enjoy this one and want to read more of her books. She's another author to add to my list!
Rating: 
Summary: Too much description, too little action
Review: I did not enjoy Elizabeth Graver's "The Honey Thief". I did not find the language elegant. I wanted a little more action in the work, and far fewer words describing other possibilites, or things that had no bearing on the story. I did not think that the mental illness Francis experienced was described well at all. I saw little compassion on Graver's part for his struggle, and her tying it in with his Catholicism---"hearing saints again"--- was truly distasteful. The author would not have liked it if a Catholic author described Judaism in such a contorted fashion. I am not sure what part Eva's unfortunate discovery of an inebriated Burl plays in the drama; there were other ways of portraying the human, fallible side of the bee-keeper. I felt Miriam's revelation to Eva on the bus headed to NYC, the visit to their friends was a bit too melodramatic, with the halted speech, and the tears. The plot is not bound, not tight enough for me, and there are many questions about the future of Miriam and Eva. I don't need every detail in place, but a better sense of direction, even from an introverted work like this, would be fine.
Rating:
Summary: A Hauntingly complex and moving novel
Review: I found this novel completely engrossing and incredibly moving. The story of Eva and the effect her past has on her present seemed so real to me. The characters are all trying so hard to manage their lives but have all kinds of human frailties. And I loved all the details about bees and beekeeping, which add a whole other layer to the book. As someone in the mental health profession, I also thought the depiction of mental illness and its effect on families was both accurate and wrenching. All-told,this is one of the best novels I've read in the last few years.
Rating:
Summary: Elegant
Review: I love this novel. The languange is elegant and eloquent, the research meticulous. I was completely drawn into the world the novel creates, and into the inner world of each character. The characters are deftly drawn and thoroughly compelling--I would recognize them if I passed them on the street. I plan to read all Graver's novels.
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeously written book.
Review: I loved reading this book, first for the language, second for the story. I'm thrilled to have found a new writer to add to my list of favorites.
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