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Summary
Summary
A BOOKLIST BEST DEBUT NOVEL OF THE YEAR
One very special work of art-a Chaim Soutine painting-will connect the lives and fates of two different women, generations apart, in this enthralling and transporting debut novel that moves from World War II Vienna to contemporary Los Angeles.
It is 1939 in Vienna, and as the specter of war darkens Europe, Rose Zimmer's parents are desperate. Unable to get out of Austria, they manage to secure passage for their young daughter on a kindertransport, and send her to live with strangers in England.
Six years later, the war finally over, a grief-stricken Rose attempts to build a life for herself. Alone in London, devastated, she cannot help but try to search out one piece of her childhood: the Chaim Soutine painting her mother had cherished.
Many years later, the painting finds its way to America. In modern-day Los Angeles, Lizzie Goldstein has returned home for her father's funeral. Newly single and unsure of her path, she also carries a burden of guilt that cannot be displaced. Years ago, as a teenager, Lizzie threw a party at her father's house with unexpected but far-reaching consequences. The Soutine painting that she loved and had provided lasting comfort to her after her own mother had died was stolen, and has never been recovered.
This painting will bring Lizzie and Rose together and ignite an unexpected friendship, eventually revealing long-held secrets that hold painful truths. Spanning decades and unfolding in crystalline, atmospheric prose, The Fortunate Ones is a haunting story of longing, devastation, and forgiveness, and a deep examination of the bonds and desires that map our private histories.
Author Notes
Ellen Umansky has published fiction and nonfiction in a variety of venues, including the New York Times, Salon, Playboy, and the short story anthologies Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge and Sleepaway: Writings on Summer Camp. She has worked in the editorial departments of The Forward, Tablet, and The New Yorker. She grew up in Los Angeles, and now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
When New York lawyer Lizzie Goldstein's father dies in a car accident, she arrives in Los Angeles to go through his house-the house where, 20 years earlier, she hosted a party as a teenager and a priceless painting by Chaim Soutine, The Bellhop, was stolen. Lizzie has been carrying the guilt around for decades, and at the funeral she meets the original owner of the painting: Rose Downes. In 1939, Rose and her brother had been two of many Jewish children on the kindertransports during World War II who were evacuated from Vienna to England, leaving behind their parents, their home, and in Rose's case, Soutine's bellhop. The story unfolds in alternating chapters of Lizzie's slow recovery from grief in L.A. and Rose's coming-of-age as a refugee in London. The two stories meet in 2008 when the women, both settled in L.A., become friends, united by the missing painting. For both women, the painting comes to represent what might have been and the complex past. Umansky's vivid telling of the scenes in Vienna and life in wartime London are lovingly juxtaposed against the modern angst of Southern California. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The Kindertransport, the recovery of Nazi-looted art, family ties, and adjustments to great loss taken individually, these are recurrent themes in literary fiction. In Umansky's first novel, they're brought together in an original and tremendously moving way in the portrayal of two women who feel like walking ghosts after their parents' deaths. Rose Zimmer is a former child refugee from Vienna who moved to Britain in the 1940s; Lizzie Goldstein is a lawyer who returns home to contemporary Los Angeles for her father's funeral. She and Rose, now an astute, prickly septuagenarian, develop an unusual friendship. Their families had once owned the same Chaim Soutine expressionist painting, and both had it stolen amid traumatic circumstances. The missing artwork holds great meaning for them, and they ponder its whereabouts. But this multilayered novel isn't a mystery, although it satisfies in that respect. Instead, it's a gradual revelation of character, and of significant events from the women's personal histories. Their journeys are engrossing to follow. Rose's story is brought forward in time from 1936, illustrating her inner strength, while Lizzie navigates relationships with her sister, her Jewishness, and a surprising new lover. The clarity of detail in Umansky's writing brings all her scenes to life. She sensitively addresses the complicated issue of survivor's guilt and leaves readers with a sense of hope.--Johnson, Sarah Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Though 11-year-old Rose Zimmer hated leaving her parents, she and her older brother were transported from Austria to England in 1939 for their safety. For years, Rose was obsessed with a painting loved by her mother that was lost when her parents were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Decades later, in 2005, New York-based lawyer Elizabeth Goldstein is back in Los Angeles to attend her father's funeral. As a child, Lizzie had been fascinated by an odd painting in her father's house and still blames herself for its theft during a party she threw as a teen when her dad was out of town. So at the funeral, when she meets an older woman named Rose Downes who claims to be a friend of her father, she's stunned when Rose says her family had owned the painting back in Vienna. The scene is set for some major disclosures, but while alternating chapters relating Rose's transformation from girl to young woman to wife are appealing, the adult Lizzie's actions seem callow and less than sympathetic. VERDICT The journey the painting takes ends up being fairly pedestrian, and the denouement lacks the requisite drama. Umansky's debut holds promise, but the execution is ultimately uninspired. An optional purchase. [See Prepub Alert, 8/26/16.]-Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.