Elizabeth Poliner

As Close to Us as Breathing is a masterpiece. The author, Elizabeth Poliner, uses her poetic skills to tell a gripping story about three Jewish sisters in the late 1940’s. The beautifully told mystery that involves a death that impacts each of the vividly detailed characters is a blistering read. The novel builds like a well-oiled classic machine with brilliant use of metaphors. As you swallow each sentence, you’ll be transported into a rich landscape that will devour your senses. You won’t want the book to end. This novel topples your wildest dreams as to what literature can do for your soul.… (altro)

In some ways the Jewish family at the centre of this novel are almost as wacky as the Mormon family at the centre of the previous book I read. In both cases, there is a heavy burden (my word) of religious rules and practices imposed on the family. Outsiders are shunned and even almost dehumanised. Of course, the setting of this story just after WW2 would surely also have given Jewish people a particularly strong sense of needing to stick together to ensure their own survival. There's another theme interwovan with this - the story of feeling reponsible for others in the family and the way it particularly impacts on the siblings of a boy who dies in an accident. Further, there are issues of sexual identity and coming of age - again, being 1948, there are very different perspectives than would be expected today. I'm more interested in grief, death and personal relationships than Jewish religious experience, but Elizabeth Poliner writes in such a way that I found myself being somewhat sympathetic to the narrator's (& author's) religious perspective.… (altro)

There is no shortage of books focused on Jewish family life, but Elizabeth Poliner’s stands apart as in instant classic according to a review by the Jewish Book Council. It is a multigenerational family saga about the long-lasting reverberations of one tragic summer. The novel examines an extended family and its world over three generations. Its point of focus is the summer of 1948, immediately following the state of Israel’s birth and, for the Leibritsky family, the trauma of its youngest member’s accidental death. The story takes place during the family’s summer vacation at a place they call Bagel Beach on the Connecticut shore. The men enjoy the beach cottage over weekends, the women live there through the summer months. Sisters are estranged, love is frustrated by duty, marriages fail, and a boy dies for no reason. Poliner makes us explore how much do you owe your parents, your people, your creator, yourself? When have you paid enough? “Poliner handles the texture of Jewish family life with brilliance, authenticity, and a touch of wistfulness.”… (altro)