Jenna Blum. (2018). The Lost Family: A Novel. HarperCollins.

Jenna Blum. 2018. The Lost Family: A Novel. HarperCollins.

Jenna Blum, The Lost Family: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2018.

Jenna Blum. The Lost Family: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2018.

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     Jenna Blum is the New York Times and # 1 internationally bestselling author of novels Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, and The Lost Family. She was voted one of Oprah readers' Top 30 Women Writers on Oprah.com and is the co-founder/ CEO of literary social media marketing company A Mighty Blaze. Jenna earned her MA at Boston University in Creative Writing and has taught writing workshops at Grub Street Writers for over 20 years. She interviewed Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and is a professional public speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to speak about her work. Jenna is based in downtown Boston, where she lives across from Woodrow's bench and is currently a dog mom to her black Lab puppy Henry Higgins. For more about Jenna, please visit www.jennablum.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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The Lost Family

fullDescription

The Lost Family is an extraordinary read, the kind of book that makes you sob and smile, the kind that gives you hope.... It is compassionate, masterful and disturbingly contemporary."—Tatiana de Rosnay, bestselling author of Sarah's Key

The New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us creates a vivid portrait of marriage, family, and the haunting grief of World War II in this emotionally charged, beautifully rendered story that spans a generation, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha's to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin. With his movie-star good looks and tragic past, Peter, a survivor of Auschwitz, is the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. He has resigned himself to a solitary life. Running Masha's consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha—the restaurant's namesake—and two young daughters perished.

Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter's guard. Though she is twenty years his junior, the two begin a passionate, whirlwind courtship. When June unexpectedly becomes pregnant, Peter proposes, believing that beginning a new family with the woman he loves will allow him to let go of the horror of the past. But over the next twenty years, the indelible sadness of those memories will overshadow Peter, June, and their daughter Elsbeth, transforming them in shocking, heartbreaking, and unexpected ways.

Jenna Blum artfully brings to the page a husband devastated by a grief he cannot name, a frustrated wife struggling to compete with a ghost she cannot banish, and a daughter sensitive to the pain of both her own family and another lost before she was born. Spanning three cinematic decades, The Lost Family is a charming, funny, and elegantly bittersweet study of the repercussions of loss and love.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
   • content:

     "An unsentimental, richly detailed study of loss and its legacy." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

     "Blum avoids the sap of happy endings and easy resolutions in this perfect encapsulation of the changing times and turbulence of mid- and late-20th-century America." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

     "This exquisitely crafted and compassionate novel offers a lesson in honesty, regardless of how difficult the truth may be. It will offer plenty of discussion for book groups." — Library Journal (starred review)

     "In...this gripping novel, Blum...displays her keen eye for character...Each unforgettable character in this deeply moving novel brings new meaning to the familiar phrase "never forget." Elie Wiesel's A Mad Desire to Dance (2009) and Michael Chabon's Moonglow (2016) also share.. a sense of hope in the face of tragic loss." — Booklist (starred review)

     "Jenna Blum shines a powerful light on how the past swings back and how we must face it. The Lost Family is an extraordinary read, the kind of book that makes you sob and smile, the kind that gives you hope.... It is compassionate, masterful and disturbingly contemporary."
     — Tatiana de Rosnay, bestselling author of Sarah's Key

     "Blum plumbs the depths of loss and love in this exquisite page-turner." — People

     "(Blum) takes on the difficult task of rendering generational trauma visible, and does it with such humor and empathy, you can't help but be swept along for the ride." — Village Voice

     "I was spellbound from the start of The Lost Family. The writing is so smart and empathetic.... This is a dazzling novel of great compassion, honestly reckoning with the time-and-place-spanning ripple effect of great pain as well as love." — Laura Moriarty, New York Times best-selling author of The Chaperone

     "Deftly executed, deeply moving, and full of heart, Jenna Blum's The Lost Family is an evocative look at the legacy of war and how it impacts one memorable family." — Jami Attenberg, bestselling author of The Middlesteins

     "This is an excellent character study of how the tragedy of the Holocaust lives on, even to this day. The damage done by the Nazis was not only death and destruction of the Jewish people of the time, but an indelible stain on the lives of all who have lived afterwards, a stain on the world so deep that the true impact of the tragedy may never be known. Blum has created a beautiful novel exploring the intertwining of both love and loss." — Jewish News

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 1, 2018
     The devastation wrought by the Holocaust haunts a chef and his second family.Blum's (The Stormchasers, 2010, etc.) third novel is all about the occasionally dire consequences of seemingly innocuous choices. It has three sections, told successively from the third-person vantage point of New York chef Peter, his supermodel wife, June, and their teenage daughter, Elsbeth. Peter, a German-Jewish émigré and a survivor of Auschwitz, deeply regrets not having heeded warnings to get his parents, wife, and twin daughters out of Germany before it was too late. In the United States, he throws himself into running his restaurant, Masha's, named after his wife, who disappeared, along with their daughters, during a Nazi roundup. Although Masha's gains a modicum of acclaim (kudos from Craig Claiborne and regular patronage by Walter Cronkite), it ultimately falls victim to a clash between Peter and his wealthy cousin, Sol, his primary investor and only living relative. June, 19 years Peter's junior, marries him on impulse and gives up her career, although her fame was approaching that of Twiggy. She grows frustrated trying to pierce Peter's adamantine reserve and rebels with "women's lib" consciousness-raising sessions and an affair with a Vietnam vet. She's on the verge of leaving the marriage when Peter suffers a heart attack and must give up work. Elsbeth deals with weight issues, bulimia, her constant comparison of her looks with her mother's, her father's sudden decline, and her infatuation with a roué photographer in the Mapplethorpe mold. One of the principal pleasures here is the accurate period window dressing of mid-1960s New York City, '70s New Jersey, and the '80s Manhattan punk world. The writing, evocative yet unassuming, conveys the interiority of the characters, even the minor ones, elevating them beyond the stereotypical. The emphasis here is on not on Nazi atrocities, which are only hinted at, but on surviving the banality of domineering relatives, bad marital choices, suburban mores, and body-image woes.An unsentimental, richly detailed study of loss and its legacy.

     COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from June 18, 2018
     Blum (Those Who Save Us) examines the second family of a Holocaust survivor—his restless, ex-supermodel wife and their troubled teenage daughter—in this crisp vision of how seemingly random choices test love, loyalty, and survival. Peter is haunted by his failure to save his wife and twin daughters from death in Nazi Germany. Years later, in 1965, he rises to success as a celebrated chef in New York City with the help of illegal funds from cousin Sol. June gives up her career as a model to marry Peter and later raise their only child, Elsbeth, but then begins to doubt her suburban life—and the emotionally distant Peter—amid the women’s liberation movement in 1975. Elsbeth, though pampered and privileged, throws herself into the drug-fueled, punk-populated New York City art world in 1985 to find the recognition and love she craves, risking her life through starvation to be the muse of photographer Julian. Blum avoids the sap of happy endings and easy resolutions in this perfect encapsulation of the changing times and turbulence of mid- and late-20th-century America. Her story of a family struggling to tell the truth to one another—and to themselves—is bolstered by memorable characters, to whom readers will become attached.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 15, 2018
     Nazis came for them on a Saturday?the day Peter Raskin lost his wife, two little girls, and his freedom. Peter's nightmare of being rounded up haunts him even 40 years later. He can't talk about Auschwitz or his family, although he owns a successful Manhattan restaurant, Masha's, named after his lost wife, and he cooks obsessively, with a gleam in his eye. Eventually, he meets the lovely June Bouquet; they marry and have a child, Elsbeth, and life looks good. But the shadow of Peter's wartime experiences affects his new family in subtle ways, eroding the bond between them. In the three sections of this gripping novel, Blum, author of Those Who Save Us (2004), displays her keen eye for character with an intense focus on Peter, June, and Elsbeth over decades of silence, transferred emotions, and interactions with others. Blum dramatizes the lingering effects of the war through the intertwining stories of families past and present, personalizing the themes of survivor guilt and shame but also injecting surprising glimpses of humor and hope. Each unforgettable character in this deeply moving novel brings new meaning to the familiar phrase never forget. Elie Wiesel's A Mad Desire to Dance (2009) and Michael Chabon's Moonglow (2016) also share similar themes, depth of character, and a sense of hope in the face of tragic loss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 1, 2018
     

     The Holocaust haunts Peter Rashkin. He owns a popular restaurant in 1965 New York; however, he hides the tattoo on his arm and the scars on his body and will not speak about his first wife, Masha, and twin daughters who were Hitler's victims while he survived. But when he meets a young model named June, Peter lowers his guard and begins a courtship. Yet over the next 20 years, his secret guilt destroys the new life he tries to make with June and their daughter, Elsbeth. Blum (Those Who Save Us) again skillfully explores the endless nightmares and pain of Holocaust survivors. Her sensitive depiction of Peter and his new family demonstrates how love doesn't always conquer all. She also shows how being kept in the dark about family secrets may lead to poor decisions on the part of those who want to know what happened but are unable to discover the truth. VERDICT This exquisitely crafted and compassionate novel offers a lesson in honesty, regardless of how difficult the truth may be. It will offer plenty of discussion for book groups. [See Prepub Alert, 12/1/17.]--Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

     Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 1, 2018
     

     In 1960s Manhattan, everyone loves Masha's, but owner/chef Peter is a Holocaust survivor who resists personal involvement until in walks beautiful June Bouquet.

     Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 1, 2018
     The devastation wrought by the Holocaust haunts a chef and his second family.Blum's (The Stormchasers, 2010, etc.) third novel is all about the occasionally dire consequences of seemingly innocuous choices. It has three sections, told successively from the third-person vantage point of New York chef Peter, his supermodel wife, June, and their teenage daughter, Elsbeth. Peter, a German-Jewish �migr� and a survivor of Auschwitz, deeply regrets not having heeded warnings to get his parents, wife, and twin daughters out of Germany before it was too late. In the United States, he throws himself into running his restaurant, Masha's, named after his wife, who disappeared, along with their daughters, during a Nazi roundup. Although Masha's gains a modicum of acclaim (kudos from Craig Claiborne and regular patronage by Walter Cronkite), it ultimately falls victim to a clash between Peter and his wealthy cousin, Sol, his primary investor and only living relative. June, 19 years Peter's junior, marries him on impulse and gives up her career, although her fame was approaching that of Twiggy. She grows frustrated trying to pierce Peter's adamantine reserve and rebels with "women's lib" consciousness-raising sessions and an affair with a Vietnam vet. She's on the verge of leaving the marriage when Peter suffers a heart attack and must give up work. Elsbeth deals with weight issues, bulimia, her constant comparison of her looks with her mother's, her father's sudden decline, and her infatuation with a rou� photographer in the Mapplethorpe mold. One of the principal pleasures here is the accurate period window dressing of mid-1960s New York City, '70s New Jersey, and the '80s Manhattan punk world. The writing, evocative yet unassuming, conveys the interiority of the characters, even the minor ones, elevating them beyond the stereotypical. The emphasis here is on not on Nazi atrocities, which are only hinted at, but on surviving the banality of domineering relatives, bad marital choices, suburban mores, and body-image woes.An unsentimental, richly detailed study of loss and its legacy.

     COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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The Lost Family is an extraordinary read, the kind of book that makes you sob and smile, the kind that gives you hope.... It is compassionate, masterful and disturbingly contemporary."—Tatiana de Rosnay, bestselling author of Sarah's Key

The New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us creates a vivid portrait of marriage, family, and the haunting grief of World War II in this emotionally charged, beautifully rendered story that spans a generation, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha's to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin. With his movie-star good looks and tragic past, Peter, a survivor of Auschwitz, is the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. He has resigned himself to a solitary life. Running Masha's consumes him, as...

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