October 4, 1999
In such works as her classic novel of family interaction, How She Died, and her graphic depiction of working-class families in Sweetsir, Yglesias has never pulled her punches, writing with unsparing candor about the ways people in intimate relationships can hurt each other. She does so again in this little book, which describes, with unconstrained frankness and gallows humor, the pitiable conditions afflicting those in the anteroom of death. Narrator Jenny Witkovsky (aka Jane Witter, the name she uses as writer, critic, professor and lecturer) is even at 80 the "baby" of the four Witkovsky sisters. Two of the siblings are slowly dying, and Jenny comes to Miami Beach to help ease their last days. Eva, the eldest, is 95, and quietly failing. Naomi, at 90, is riddled with cancer. In recent years, they have depended on the third sister, 85-year-old Flora, a flamboyant geriatric sexpot who egotistically manipulates her siblings' lives. Now Jenny's arrival causes combustion. Yglesias eschews plot in favor of character portrayals, sketchily delineating the sisters' upbringing as the offspring of Jewish immigrants, and filling in their numerous marriages and lovers, careers and children, and the origins of their sibling rivalry. Meanwhile, she presents a social and cultural travelogue of Miami Beach's various districts and neighborhoods--sweeping from the gaudy vulgarity of opulent hotels to down-at-the-heels elderly residences and nursing homes; capturing the Jewish population's prejudices against Cubans and Haitians, and vice versa; and drawing, without a veil of tact, an accurate picture of the geriatric community, most of whom are torn between the will to live and the wish to get dying over with. Detailed descriptions of the outfits each sister wears daily are intended as an indication of character but become jarringly intrusive in so slight a story. Yet some things are eerily accurate: the Yiddish-flavored, go-for-the-jugular dialogue; the ubiquity of infirm bodies using wheelchairs and walkers, the loud chatter of Spanish on buses and other public conveyances. And when, after a series of confrontations, recriminations, tears and reconciliations, the sisters finally agree on terminal care, they are all clear-eyed about the "unspeakable reality" of death. The audience for this book is anyone who is watching people they love grow old. Agents, Frances Goldin and Sydelle Kramer.
October 1, 1999
Yglesias, author of "How She Died" (1972), weaves a slight but moving story about four sisters--Jenny, age 80, Flora, 85, Naomi, 90, and Eva, 95--coping with the various indignities of aging. Jenny has come to Miami (where the three other sisters live) to help Naomi after her second cancer surgery. In between bickering with Flora, straightening out Naomi's finances, and discovering that Eva is having an adverse reaction to her medication, Jenny realizes that she has still not dealt with the hurt feelings and jealousy left over from childhood. As she and Flora accompany Eva and Naomi to the nursing home that is their final destination, Jenny understands that Flora's life, and hers, will eventually come to the same end. Yglesias leavens the grimness with comic scenes, especially featuring Flora, who picks up men at geriatric centers and complains about their sexual adequacy. This is a good novel to accompany Elizabeth Taylor's "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" (1971), "The Diaries of Jane Somers" by Doris Lessing (1984), and the memoirs of Doris Grumbach and May Sarton. ((Reviewed October 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)
October 15, 1999
I am not an 80-year-old Jewish woman. Nor have I been to Miami, with its gaudy colors, hot wind, and aging population. But from this novel, the fifth by Helen Yglesias (The Saviors), I can vividly imagine what it would be like. The "girls" are the four Witkovsky sisters: Eva, 95, debilitated by carelessly monitored drugs; Naomi, 90, fighting cancer but maintaining a crown of naturally black hair; Flora, 85, dressed in garish outfits as she does her standup routine on the senior circuit; and Jenny, the youngest, who comes south from New York to care for the others. Through her we meet the sisters, celebrate Eva's birthday, meet Flora's latest date, and settle Naomi into a nursing home. The sisters quarrel about men and money, rage and forgive, review the past and wonder why they can't live forever in this brisk, affecting novel. Recommended for public libraries.--Yvette Weller Olson, City Univ. Lib., Renton, WA
Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.