Evgenia CitkowitzRecensioni

A family is reeling from the death of their teenaged daughter and sister, and each deals with it in their own way. This is primarily the mother's story - a tale of grief, guilt, and blame. There is some gorgeous writing, but the characters are kept very much at a distance from the reader and the final act didn't have the pay-off that I think it was intended to have.

3.5 stars½

This is a spare novel about the impact of the loss of a child on the rest of the family. The sense of dread builds as the book progresses. You know something will happen, but what?½

Evgenia Citkowitz explores the devastating effects of loss in her first full-length novel The Shades. Catherine is a gallery owner who is still reeling from the loss of her daughter in an accident over a year ago. She wanders around the family’s country home-unable to return to work, barely coping with daily activities, and hiding from neighbors and friends. Her husband is spending increasingly more time at their London address, working and trying to reconcile his own beliefs about his relationship with Catherine before it became so distant and disconnected. Their teenage son, Rowan, has reacted to the death of his sister by running away to a private school. He becomes increasingly involved with environmental activism and seeks concrete ways to wrest back control of his life. The short novel alternates between these three characters, highlighting their separation and alienation from the world and each other. When a strange waif-like girl arrives at her doorstep, claiming to be the daughter of the previous owners, Catherine immediately sees her as a surrogate for her own lost child. Catherine become increasingly obsessed with taking this stranger under her wing, but Keira may not be who she claims to be. Catherine may not be able to recover from another loss and she is casting about for a sense of purpose as depression threatens to overwhelm her. In The Shades, Citkowitz provides a dense tale filled with emotion and a sense of lingering despair as this small family verges on collapse under the weight of their own grief.½

Thanks to the Goodreads Giveaway program for the free copy - looking forward to reading and reviewing this novel!

Thanks to the publisher, W W. Norton & Company, for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Evgenia Citkowitz is a new author for me. This novel is advertised as a mystery but, to me, it was not very suspenseful. It's the story of a family coping with the untimely death of their daughter and sister, Rachel. It studies each of the parents and brother as they cope with their grief in different ways. Not only is the loss of a young person's life a tragedy, but the family left behind is profoundly affected. There are not a lot of characters in this novel which I liked. But I felt the story line moved slowly including some details that didn't relate. The ending was confusing but by that time, I just wanted the family members to come together and realize that they still had each other.

Even though the author did a good job of getting inside the grieving minds of the three main characters, this novel probably won't be a memorable one for me.

I thought these were ho-hum. Good ideas but nothing substanial. I didn't make it through to the novella.

Ether, the debut volume by Evgenia Citkowitz, consists of seven edgy short stories and an even edgier novella. These are stories peopled largely by characters who have given up on youthful dreams and ambitions, or who feel guilty for their own achievements. Either way, the feeling of being thwarted—by success or failure—seems in each case to lead to a neurosis or a struggle to forge a new identity. The book opens with “Happy Love.” In this story Candayce takes her daughter Elizabeth to Europe for two months. The lengthy absence means having to board Elizabeth’s pet hamster Peanut, who is taken in by Uma, Candayce’s friend and yoga instructor. On their return, mother and daughter fetch Peanut from Uma, but the animal they retrieve looks and behaves nothing like the hamster they left behind. Uma’s defensive and subtly hostile response to Candayce’s questions finally doom the friendship, and Candayce is left with suspicions (but no evidence) that Uma is covering up some mishap by pawning off an imposter on her. In “The Bachelor’s Table” a young lawyer impulsively purchases an expensive table at an antique shop for a price he knows is well below its actual market value, only to be tracked down later by the woman who sold it to him who admits her mistake and pleads with him to pay the difference or return it. Annoyed that he can’t subdue his conscience he gives in and returns the table, but not before exacting a petty revenge. And in the title novella, “Ether,” a severely blocked writer named William, seeking some sort of creative spark, moves from New York to Los Angeles. Here he falls in love with a young movie starlet, Madeline. Covering the span of their brief marriage, the novella utilizes a large cast of diverse characters to depict William and Madeline pursuing separate creative outlets that ultimately lead to the dissolution of their relationship. Citkowitz’s narratives are heavily spiced with irony, and while her characters are certainly interesting, no one here is particularly admirable or likeable. Throughout the volume the writing is sharp and witty and filled with barbed observations about modern life in America. Mothers and daughters are in for a particularly rough time in these pages. Ether is an assured and entertaining volume from a writer who apparently holds nothing sacred. Recommended.

Loved the short stories, especially 'The Clearance', with its old house, strange visitor, paranormal feel.

Could not finish the title novella, so this book ends up being a DNF. Perhaps I'll come back to it in a few months and try 'Ether' again.

This book is comprised of seven short stories (one very, very short indeed) and the title story, a novella. These stories are little jewels. They cut to the heart; the characters are depicted without mercy but with dark humor. These are people whose lives have taken turns they hadn’t planned on, as happens to all of us. Most have come from dysfunctional families, and we see how some have succumbed to that and some have survived and been made stronger. A couple of the stories brush up against surrealism without stepping into it. At first glance, some of the stories seem slight, but on reflection, they are deep.