From Publishers Weekly
On her 40th birthday, Eve, a WASP New York magazine columnist of German descent, has the ID number of an Auschwitz victim tattooed on her arm. This number is identical to that worn by an unidentified inmate in a 1944 death-camp photograph, whom Eve calls "Eva." Disturbed by her tattoo, her live-in lover, French-born filmmaker Charles, walks out; Eve then discovers that he was born Jewish and had converted to Catholicism, conflicted over his parents who were Nazi collaborators. While inventing variant life histories for Eva, Eve soon seems to split into a dual personality, holding conversations with Eva and probing such questions as why masses of German women ardently supported Hitler. Penthouse columnist and novelist Prager ( Clea and Zeus Divorce ) never satisfactorily explains Eve's obsession, which resembles a mental illness; her story, without metaphorical reverberation, is flawed.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From Library Journal
The plot of this novel, the author's second, concerns a woman, Eve, who has her forearm tattooed with a serial number mimicking that of an Auschwitz victim. The tattoo is Eve's attempt to atone for her own guilt by association and to immortalize a woman she calls Eva, who died in the Holocaust. It is also a means of compelling her French-Jewish lover to confront his past and of heightening the public's awareness of Nazi crimes. While the situation may seem intriguing, poor writing and an apparent lack of revision or editing render the book almost unreadable. Character is undeveloped, dialog is unconvincing, plot is contrived, word choice is inconsistent and inappropriate, metaphors are cliched and repetitive, and forced satire is incongruously mingled with offensive didacticism. These faults are exacerbated by the pretentious protagonist, who offers unsophisticated and insipid comments in the guise of insight. N ot recommended.
- Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib., Cambridge
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
- Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib., Cambridge
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
