The Lost Child
In T Cooper’s second novel, the Lindbergh kidnapping is not the first time a Lindbergh child is separated from his family.
By Elisabeth Crean and the Editors
As family lore goes, the Lipshitz legend is a doozy: that Charles Lindbergh was really Reuven Lipshitz, a Russian-Jewish immigrant child who mysteriously vanished from Ellis Island in 1907. The cherubic, quiet, five-year-old disappeared during the chaotic crush of disembarking—his fingers momentarily slipped from his father’s hand. Because Reuven was special—“the blondest, most blue-eyed Jew in all of Bessarabia”—his mother, Esther, instantly knows that she’ll never see him again.
This theme of sudden, painful, inexplicable loss runs deep in Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes (Dutton, 2006), the quirky and ambitious second novel by T Cooper ’94. The Lipshitz family flees the senseless havoc and slaughter of the pogroms that have swept their village in eastern Russia. The horrors have numbed Esther’s emotions, and Reuven’s disappearance leaves her virtually anesthetized.
She becomes almost indifferent to the fates of her husband and their remaining three children, who carve out fascinating paths on an unexpected frontier of Jewish settlement: Amarillo, Texas. Daughter Miriam marries a flashy businessman who wins his first store in a poker game. Oldest son Ben stays behind in New York City for a while, flirting secretly with its underground gay culture. Youngest son Shmuel feels his brothers’ absence keenly, asserting his manhood by volunteering for the army in World War I.
Husband Hersh, goodhearted but ineffectual, bears the brunt of Esther’s disaffection. She blandly acknowledges that her heart is “the location where you are supposed to feel . . . worry and love and concern.” But her heart is mostly empty until a visit to an itinerant palm reader jump starts her deadened spirit. Reuven is alive, he tells her. He will become famous, but will also suffer a great loss—a loss similar to the one Esther has endured.
This revelation electrifies Esther. She starts following the news intently. Guy trapped in a cave? No, too old to be Reuven. But after Lindbergh’s record-breaking flight across the Atlantic, Esther learns the boys’ birthdays are just one day apart. “The most satisfying and peaceful knowledge she ever thought possible” overcomes her. To Ben she confesses: “Charles Lindbergh is your brother.”
The novel is at its liveliest as Esther begins obsessively following every detail of Lindy’s life. The narrative is taken over, much as Esther’s life is, by the news stories Esther meticulously clips and the letters she sends to Mrs. Lindbergh, coyly congratulating her on “our” son’s accomplishments. Esther also feels compelled to warn about the tragedy predicted to befall him. When the aviator’s son is kidnapped, Esther sees the Lipshitz legacy of loss eerily perpetuated: it echoes Reuven’s own abduction a generation before.
To say much about the last quarter of the book would spoil the fun. But here are a few hints. A great-grandchild named T Cooper reconstructs the odd saga from Esther’s secret stash of clippings. The second angry blond is an Eminem impersonator popular on the New York City bar mitzvah circuit. And the author puts a wild spin on an intriguing question: What is inherited? Is destiny written in the blood?
— EC
Saving the World
In the middle of her journey, Alma Huebner has lost her way. About to turn 50, the Latina novelist has a drifting marriage and paralyzing writer’s block. She gathers the antidepressants from her medicine cabinet and buries them in the forest behind her Vermont home. There has to be a place left in modern life for a crisis of the soul, a dark night that doesn’t have a chemical solution. Like Dante, Alma realizes she must wander in the wilderness before finding the right path.
While researching her long-overdue third book, Alma stumbles across an unlikely Virgil. Isabel is a tantalizing 200-year-old historical cipher. The rectoress of a Spanish orphanage undertook an extraordinary voyage shepherding 22 boys, living carriers of the smallpox vaccine, to Spain’s overseas colonies. Few facts are certain about the expedition’s only woman, not even her last name. But Alma feels drawn to reconstruct her story, sensing that Isabel was propelled by her own “dark flock of sorrows.”
In her fifth novel, Saving the World (Algonquin, 2006), Middlebury writer in residence Julia Alvarez ’71 unfolds the tales of Alma and Isabel in alternating chapters. Both women are partners to idealistic men. Alma’s husband Richard tackles an ambitious environmental project in her native Dominican Republic. Isabel helps Dr. Francisco Balmis use science to conquer an ancient scourge.
Utopian zeal drives the men, blinding them to obstacles. But the women are more sanguine. Alma knows that “in any salvation scenario there are bound to be casualties.” Isabel witnesses perennial human weaknesses frustrate Balmis’s quest. “It seemed we were saving the world only so that it could be lost to violence and further adversity.” Doing good is never simple in a troubled world, whether in 1803 or 2003.
Sometimes the transitions between modern and historical chapters feel slightly forced, but the narrative drive accelerates as the women’s journeys grow more harrowing. For Alma, Isabel’s story becomes “the quivering little needle of her moral compass.” For the reader, inspiration comes from the strength these two survivors acquire on their “long climb out of hell.” Dante would be proud.
—EC
Worlds on Fire
From the Moon’s lava fields to Mount Etna in Sicily, geologist Charles Frankel ’79 takes the reader on a galactic tour of the most fiery volcanoes in the solar system in his book Worlds on Fire: Volcanoes on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus and Io (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
A native of Paris, Frankel has authored several books on planetary geology, and while his work is written for students of planetary sciences, it has mass appeal, as well.
Part of the general appeal lies in the book’s structure: At each “stop”—Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Io—Frankel proposes a field trip to five landmark volcanoes. For each volcano, he proposes an itinerary—with a great degree of poetic license employed, of course—that includes hiking instructions and advice on the best time to visit.
On a tour of lunar volcanoes, Frankel suggests that one visit Hadley Rille. “Although the slope is gentle—about 25 degrees—we want to secure ourselves with a tether, before abseiling down to the outcrops and chipping away with our hammers.”
Great fun and well worth exploring.
— Eds.
Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die
So, you have frequent flyer miles to burn, golf clubs at the ready, and a jones to play the 50 best courses on the planet? Well, we have just the resource for you.
Fresh off the publication of Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die , writer Chris Santella ’85 embraces another passion with his latest work Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2005). As in Fly Fish, Santella didn’t solely rely on his own preference or judgment—he sought out experts in the field, from PGA Tour veterans Gary Player and Nick Faldo to those who clearly know their way around a course (think: Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Donald Trump).
The usual suspects—Pebble Beach, St. Andrews—are present, but so are lesser-known gems such as Kenya’s Windsor Golf and Country Club, where monkeys “make up a distinctive gallery presence on the back nine.”
Each entry provides a brief history of the course, as well as helpful travel information. And if globe-trotting to exotic golf locales isn’t on your agenda, Santella’s book is perfectly suited for armchair travelers as well. Replete with exquisite photography and colorful writing, Golf would be right at home on any coffee table.
— Eds.
Recently Published
- El Lector (Wendy Lamb Books, 2006) by William Durbin, M.A. English ’86
- Often Wrong, Never in Doubt: Unleash the Business Rebel Within (HarperCollins, 2005) Donny Deutsch with Peter Knobler ’68
- Stress Relief for Kids: Taming Your Dragons (Whole Person Associates, 2006) by Martha Belknap ’58
- This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) by Anthony Flint ’84