The Grandmothers' Club (Contemporary American Fiction) - Softcover

Set as a series of conversations between the protagonist's mother Minnie and her friends in "the grandmothers' club," Alan Cheuse's second novel is the story of a midlife crisis of tragic proportions, of the rise and fall of the hopelessly divided Manny Bloch. Early in the novel a pigeon suddenly speaks to Manny in what the 16-year-old perceives to be the voice of his dead father. "You want to be both rich and blessed?" the bird asks. "Follow me then." Manny does, becoming by all appearances a consummate success, both the respected rabbi of a quarrelsome NewJersey temple and a prosperous businessman. Now in his early forties and torn apart by the conflicting demands of his two lives, Manny leaves the temple to devote himself to business, soon guiding his company to the takeover of a fruit company with extensive Central American holdings. But even here peace of mind eludes him. His wife's emotional problems lead to confinement in an asylum, and his daughter becomes involved in a sexual scandal at college. "Manny doesn't understand the women he lives with" Minnie Bloch says, and this blindness results in disaster when Manny leaps to his death after his daughter's revengeful betrayal. What makes this novel unusual is the doting, yet perceptive, Minnie Bloch, the frame through which we view Manny's rise and fall. She surrounds Cheuse's contemporary themes with a delightfully old-fashioned sort of storytelling, as if her tales derived from the collective memory. And she attains to mythic proportions herself, becoming, by book's end, a kind of spiritual mother, viewing generation after generation of her ever fallible sons with a mixture of love and sadness. The G-randmothers'Club is a remarkably rich and resonant novel. -- From Independent Publisher

In her twilight years, Minnie Bloch tells her life story, mainly about her son son, Manny, a rabbi who became a shipping magnate and eventually suffered a downfall. PW wrote that the tale "overflows with compassion and a profound sadness."
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