April 28, 2008
Three June titles from independent presses take on discovery... and recovery.
Dearest Anne
Judith Katzir
. Feminist
, $15.95 paper (344p) ISBN 978-1-55861-575-5
; $55 cloth ISBN 978-1-55861-579-3
As Rivi Shenhar comes of age in mid-1970s Israel, social change is in the air and peace talks between Israel and Egypt are in the works. After divorce shatters her family, Rivi is raised by her neglectful mother and helps care for her two younger brothers. She documents her feelings of abandonment and longing in a diary addressed to Anne Frank—a conceit that actually works—and develops a crush on her vibrant, soon-to-be-married literature teacher, a woman named Michaela Berg. To Rivi's amazement, Michaela reciprocates. Katzir (Matisse Has the Sun in His Belly
) takes pains to paint their relationship as tender, loving and often erotic, one that provides desperately needed intimacy for both. She also draws parallels between Rivi and Anne Frank: difficulty with their mothers, a need for privacy and a budding interest in sexuality. The power of unconditional love fuels Rivi's development into a confident young woman, a development Katzir telescopes nicely in the book's finale.
June 1, 2008
When Rivi Shenhar returns to Israel for a funeral, she unearths a collection of her childhood diaries kept decades before. Addressed to Anne Frank, her old diarieschronicle Rivis impassioned and intense coming-of-age. Rivi grows up inmid-1970s rural Israel, living with her mother, a critical and vacant woman, after her parents divorce. Though largely isolated by her peers and superiors, 14-year-old Rivi is intellectually and emotionally inquisitive, and shefinds solace in a budding relationship with her literature teacher, Michaela, who is engaged to be married. This relationship soon evolves into an illicit, passionate affair that lasts for years, providing Rivi and Michaela with the love and companionship they crave. Katzirs proseis evocative, at times furiously erotic, as Rivi archives her progression from insecure teenager into a self-assured woman. The story is most affecting in the moments of internal reflection from an adult Rivi, later a mother and accomplished author, and in the raw emotion she rediscovers within the narratives of her adolescent self.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)