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by Betsy Carter
For readers of The Nightingale and Brooklyn, an exquisitely moving novel about friendship, love, and redemption in a circle of immigrants who flee Europe for 1930s-era New York City.
On the eve of World War II Egon Schneider - a gallant and successful Jewish doctor, son of two world-famous naturalists - escapes Germany to an uncertain future across the sea. Settling into the unfamiliar rhythms of upper Manhattan, he finds solace among a tight-knit group of fellow immigrants, tenacious men and women drawn together as much by their differences as by their memories of the world they left behind.
They each suffer degradations and triumphs large and small: Egon's terminally acerbic lifelong friend, bestselling author Meyer Leavitt, now wears a sandwich board on a New York street corner; Catrina Harty, the headstrong daughter of a dirt-poor Irish trolley driver, survives heartbreak and loss to forge an unlikely alliance; and Egon himself is forced to abandon his thriving medical practice to become the "Cheese Man" at a Washington Heights grocery. But their spirits remain unbroken, and when their little community is faced with an existential threat, these strangers rise up together in hopes of creating a permanent home. With her uncanny ability to create indelible characters in unforgettable circumstances, Betsy Carter has crafted a gorgeous novel that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt adrift and longed for home.
"Starred Review. Moving and intensely personal, this subtle novel of the immigrant experience in 1940s Manhattan boasts impressive and varied character development ... A memorable, important, and insightful novel." - Booklist
"The journalistic flatness of the narrative and Carter's tendency toward easy sentimentality make for a disappointingly pedestrian take on what should be a dramatically charged subject given today's refugee crisis." - Kirkus
"This is a gorgeous, heartbreaking book...Could this be required reading for anyone who seeks to keep refugees out of this country?" - Historical Novels Review
"In this sharply observed historical novel...An important book to remind us of the humanity in the current wave of immigrants, and how much they have to offer us." - Alice LaPlante, New York Times bestselling author of Turn of Mind
"Betsy Carter's warm and beautiful prose brings us love, tragedy, mystery and hope in a moving celebration of America and the people who have come to it." - Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of Lucky Us and Away
"I was carried through We Were Strangers Once by a story as swiftly paced affecting as the events that deposit its characters on wartime American shores. I believed in this desperate flotsam of immigrant souls, drawn with keen historical accuracy, humor, and a lackmaker's eye for detail. I didn't want to leave these benighted, unlikely lovers." - Gerri Hirshey, author of Not Pretty Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown
This information about We Were Strangers Once was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
The daughter of German immigrants, Betsy Carter is the author of the novels Swim to Me, The Orange Blossom Special, and The Puzzle King, as well as her memoir, Nothing to Fall Back On. She is also the creator and editor of New York Woman Magazine, and has worked at many other magazines, including Newsweek, Harper's Bazaar and Esquire.
Pony Confidential
by Christina Lynch
In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.
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At times, our own light goes out, and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
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