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Hunger and Thirst chronicles the rise
and fall of the Trouts as they live out the longing, betrayal,
and precariousness of family life in the Chicago Jewish culture
of the fifties. Rich with period detail, the novel is a fierce
exploration of a family that loves deeply, even as they are
compelled to destroy.
Irwina meets Buddy at the Aragon Ballroom as World War II
is beginning. In a woman's life, there is only one first
dance. Buddy sketches their future on a napkin and speaks
the words she's been waiting for: Patou, Schiaparelli, Chanel,
Vionnet. He has the walk, the fit, the money. She has the
looks, the eye, the dreams. Besides, she's past thirty and
can't keep living with Ma. They open a Frock Shop---only
the big names---and give working-class women dignity and
hope. For a while. Enter the demons. For Buddy, it's vodka,
rage, gizmos, and a growing desire to possess his twelve-year-old
daughter, Joan, as his wife pushes him away. Irwina loses
herself in elaborate store windows, wears mother and wife
like a sometimes garment, meets her imagined Unseen Partner
in the flesh, and deflects attacks from a jealous Greek chorus
of kalooki players known as the women-in-the-building.
Only the daughter can see the storm coming. As Joan struggles
to hold the family together, she's given some unusual gifts
of survival and must finally choose between all that means
home and all that she fears. A funny, sad, relentlessly clear-eyed
story that marks the debut of a most gifted writer.
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