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Floating in My Mother's Palm by Ursula Hegi β€” book cover

Floating in My Mother's Palm

by Ursula Hegi, John Collier (Illustrator), Francine Kass
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Overview

Floating in My Mother's Palm is the compelling and mystical story of Hanna Malter, a young girl growing up in 1950's Burgdorf, the small German town Ursula Hegi so brilliantly brought to life in her bestselling novel Stones from the River. Hanna's courageous voice evokes her unconventional mother, who swims during thunderstorms; the illegitimate son of an American GI, who learns from Hanna about his father; and the librarian, Trudi Montag, who lets Hanna see her hometown from a dwarf's extraordinary point of view. Although Ursula Hegi wrote Floating in My Mother's Palm first, it can be read as a sequel to Stones from the River.

Synopsis

Floating in My Mother's Palm is the compelling and mystical story of Hanna Malter, a young girl growing up in 1950's Burgdorf, the small German town Ursula Hegi so brilliantly brought to life in her bestselling novel Stones from the River. Hanna's courageous voice evokes her unconventional mother, who swims during thunderstorms; the illegitimate son of an American GI, who learns from Hanna about his father; and the librarian, Trudi Montag, who lets Hanna see her hometown from a dwarf's extraordinary point of view. Although Ursula Hegi wrote Floating in My Mother's Palm first, it can be read as a sequel to Stones from the River.

Publishers Weekly

Hanna Malter, a young girl in a post-WW II German town, obliquely exposes the secret lives of her family and acquaintances. According to PW , ``Some of the parables are a little too neat, but in general these finely tuned, interlocked vignettes convey both the essence of childhood and the spiritual emptiness of a community unwilling to confront the implications of the recent war.'' (June)

About the Author, Ursula Hegi

Mary Macky of The San Francisco Chronicle once observed that "Ursula Hegi has a real genius for the material of personal existence, for the world seen close up." In her quirky yet poignant novels, the German-born Hegi displays this genius time and again.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Hanna Malter, a young girl in a post-WW II German town, obliquely exposes the secret lives of her family and acquaintances. According to PW , ``Some of the parables are a little too neat, but in general these finely tuned, interlocked vignettes convey both the essence of childhood and the spiritual emptiness of a community unwilling to confront the implications of the recent war.'' June

Library Journal

This novel of a girlhood in a small German town in the Fifties memorably recalls a time and place and people. Hitler is not mentioned at school. The unspoken and unspeakable extend from the past to the postwar present in a series of intimate vignettes and tales about the townspeople--family secrets and tragedies, accidents, suicides, murders, incest, and grotesqueries told with the spellbinding grace and beauty of old ballads and a touch of the Brothers Grimm. Young Hanna's reckless mother is an artist both fascinated and confined by the town. Daring to swim during a thunderstorm, she initiates her daughter into a fierce and joyous love of life as they dance together in the water. The moment confers a healing benediction on Hanna's sometimes painful and mysterious rite of passage. An exceptional work, recommended for most fiction collections.-- Mary Soete, San Diego P.L., Cal.

Book Details

Published
July 1, 1998
Publisher
Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Pages
192
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780684854755

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