Dorothy J. (DotJ) - reviewed on + 33 more book reviews
Amid the breathtaking beauty of the Catskill Mountains, Avrum Feldman listened to the haunting voice of Amelita Galli-Curci ringing the Shandaken Valley - a voice no one else could hear. When he died at age one hundred six, his obesssion of the famous opera diva had lasted three-quarters of a century. Most people considered Avrum crazy, someone preoccupied with romantic nonsense. But Madison Lee "Bobo" Murphy was not among them, for he, too, had a love that changed his life, or almost did: Amy Lourie.
In the summer of 1955 , Bobo was a waiter at the Catskills' Pine Hill Inn; a rural Southerner who had never heard tht word 'meshugge' until Avrum-a retired furrier, teacher, and translator from New York City-became his unlikely friend. For Bobo nothing about that summer ever lost its glow: his first taste of 'kartoffel suppe'; the exotic mingling of Yeddish and German in the dining room; the girl he met and loved...
Now thirty-eight years later, Avrum is gone, leaving a will that becons Bobo north to the Catskills once more. In the places he'd walked so often on the paths of memory, he embraces the ghosts of old friendships and haunting hints of Amy's presence, until she unexpectedly appears. Nothing has dimmed the passion of their youth, yet two lifetimes and a thousand Catskills sunsets stand between who they were and who they have become. The strikes against them are different now, but mysteriously, miraculously, as Bobo carries out Avrum's last wishes for a strange 'Kaddish", he hears the dreams of his youth, of the young man who went foth and became part of a love larger than himself...
In the summer of 1955 , Bobo was a waiter at the Catskills' Pine Hill Inn; a rural Southerner who had never heard tht word 'meshugge' until Avrum-a retired furrier, teacher, and translator from New York City-became his unlikely friend. For Bobo nothing about that summer ever lost its glow: his first taste of 'kartoffel suppe'; the exotic mingling of Yeddish and German in the dining room; the girl he met and loved...
Now thirty-eight years later, Avrum is gone, leaving a will that becons Bobo north to the Catskills once more. In the places he'd walked so often on the paths of memory, he embraces the ghosts of old friendships and haunting hints of Amy's presence, until she unexpectedly appears. Nothing has dimmed the passion of their youth, yet two lifetimes and a thousand Catskills sunsets stand between who they were and who they have become. The strikes against them are different now, but mysteriously, miraculously, as Bobo carries out Avrum's last wishes for a strange 'Kaddish", he hears the dreams of his youth, of the young man who went foth and became part of a love larger than himself...
