Sandra Novack

Where to begin? From the moment I first entered the world Sandra Novack created in Precious, I was in awe. The novel is beautifully written, lyrical even. At the very heart of the novel is the characters, each one weighed down by the events in their lives which have seemingly swallowed them whole. It is impossible to summarize this book succinctly. There are so many threads running through the novel. A mother who feels trapped in her life and neglected by her husband runs off, leaving behind show more a husband and two daughters. The repercussions of her actions have grave consequences. The oldest daughter, Eva, finds comfort in sex, taking up an affair with her married high school teacher who is going through his own marital crisis. Nine-year-old Sissy escapes into fantasy, often mixing her day dreams with reality. Frank, the girls’ father, is caught up in his own anger and frustration. He is just going through the motions, unable to be there for his daughters in a way they need him to be.

Add to that the sudden disappearance of a young girl in their small Pennsylvania town, which only increases the tensions already surrounding the family. Ginny Anderson, the mother of the missing girl, turns further inward, closing herself off from the rest of the world. Her connection to the Kisch family is twofold. Sissy and the missing girl, Vicki, had been good friends as had Sissy’s mother, Natalia, and Ginny.

Natalia’s return sets off an entirely new set of consequences for her family. So much has changed in the few months she had been gone.

There is so much to this novel. Each of the characters is flawed and their emotions are raw. Author Sandra Novack captures that so eloquently. One thing I found frustrating and yet so utterly true to life was how alone the characters felt. There were moments when they would come together, share in their pain and grief, but those moments were fleeting. Instead they each stood very much apart from one another, coping in their own ways. How many times did I want to reach out and hug Eva and Sissy?

Abandonment and loss are the two major themes of the novel. Within each of their lives the characters struggle to deal with their own feelings of loss. The role of family as well as that of love also plays a part. The Kisch family and the other various characters in the novel are faced with family crises that test their resolve, make them question their own realities, including the people they hold most dear.

The novel takes place in the summer of 1978, a time period that is quite significant to the setting of the book. The steel industry is showing signs of distress, the effects of the Vietnam War still linger, and it is a time when parents are less afraid for their children’s safety–at least until something unimaginable happens to change all that. Natalia’s own history as an immigrant child who lost her family during the Holocaust, herself having once lived in a concentration camp, colors her desires and perceptions of the day. Her family were Hungarian gypsies and she still carries bits of that with her. There were so many little threads like these which I would have liked to explore further, but Precious is not the book in which to do that. In this instance, such details helped fill out the characters and bring the story more fully to life.

I enjoyed Precious immensely. It took me a little while to get into it only because I wasn’t able to devote much time to reading it at first. Once I was able to sit down and really get into it, I couldn’t stop reading. I became a part of the story, my heart ached for so many of the characters–a sure sign that the book got under my skin and stole my heart. This was one of those books I hated to see come to an end. show less

As I was reading Precious, Tolstoy's famous opening for Anna Karenina came to mind: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

In Precious it's the Kisches, a working class family struggling through an unhappy, tumultuous summer in 1978 Pennsylvania. The US had just gone through enormous economic and social change post-WWII, and in Precious, it is home to European immigrants like middle-aged, Natalia Kisch, a Hungarian gypsy by birth and a child-survivor show more of the Nazi pogroms; to Frank Kisch, an American steel worker; as well as, to weary, disillusioned social idealists like Peter, a high school teacher and married lover to a frankly sexual seventeen-year old, Eva Kisch.

The story opens with the disappearance of nine-year old Sissy Kisch's best (and seemingly only) friend, Vicki Anderson. Vicki's mother, Ginny, is an alchoholic whose husband, a Vietnam vet, had committed suicide. She is also one person that a reserved Natalia Kisch has bonded with in the neighborhood. But Natalia, whose life had seemed an "endless succession of small tasks", had left her husband and children some months ago to be with her lover. But now, to the anger and confusion of her husband and children, who are still dealing with feelings of abandonment, Natalia has returned home to find her husband silent and withdrawn; Eva, furious and rebellious; and an imaginative Sissy, troubled by her friend Vicki's disappearance, filled with distrust, and too often left to her own devices.

Novack's prose, deceptively simple, yet profoundly beautiful and wise, explores her characters deeply but with the lightest touch. She seemlessly weaves themes of love, anger, isolation, abandonment, and loneliness from all points of view in a way that feels fresh and new. In Precious, Novack reveals life in all its painful, and often, bewildering inconsistencies.

But Precious is more than a story about a dysfunctional, American family. Her characters are struggling to maintain their balance in a world that "gets [them] in more mundane ways". It's a novel about broken dreams and how they can haunt you into adulthood. It's a tender, emotional work about ordinary people who struggle between their need for personal freedom and individuality, and their need for love, companionship, friendship, and family. Read Precious, and you'll think about it. You'll think about what's precious. show less

Sissy Kisch grew up in a confusing family during a confusing time. Her family lived in a Pennsylvania steel town in the 1970s, where her father has been employed at the local steel mill for his entire adult life. Her mother, Natalia, a gypsy child who luckily survived Krackow and was raised by a German couple, has left the family to go off to Florence with her boss. She left Sissy and Eva, the oldest child by several years, to be cared for by their father. In reality, since Frank worked long show more hours, Sissy was left in Eva's care and Eva didn't want to be saddled with the responsibility of raising her pre-pubescent sister while she was enjoying the freedom of not being parented at the age of 17. Shortly after Natalia's exit, Vicki Anderson, Sissy's former best friend turns up missing from the local playground. Being virtually neglected all around, Sissy has to come to terms with the possibility of death, losing a parent, and growing up all alone while her home is in upheaval during one long, hot summer.

Precious has a very strong sense of time. I imagine a childhood in any era is unique, but Novack captured what it was like to be a child in the 1970s. Despite coming out of the 1960s, it was a more innocent time when children were still allowed to leave the house in the morning so long as they were home on time for lunch and dinner. Most parents stayed married, whether they should have or not. There was a darker underside, though. There were the children kidnapped and murdered and no one really liked to talk about it. Look the other way, and it won't happen to your child. I have very vivid memories of the winter that Linda VanderVeen was murdered and then dumped in a snowbank in my hometown of Grand Rapids, MI. It's 30 years later and I can still remember her last name as if it were my own. I remembered her living near my neighborhood and that there were two assailants, but the news story proves those memories false. Funny how your mind draws you closer to something traumatic than you really were. In this way, I could very much relate to Sissy (that and the bike envy, but that's a different story altogether). We both told ourselves stories and those stories become real.

Every single character in Precious is flawed, from the Kisch family, to Ginny Anderson, to Peter and Amy Fulton, and even the well-meaning but gossip-mongering neighbors. When characters are not hurting one another, they are acting out in a self-destructive way. Eva especially turns her anger over her parent's relationship and her mother's abandonment on to herself. She was too young and immature to see it at that time, but she couldn't control her parents or Sissy. The only thing she could do was decide to control her sexuality. The hard truth was that her choices only served to highlight how out of control her entire life was. When others were able to pass off the responsibility for what happened during that summer, she always got caught red-handed. Of all the characters, I felt the most sad for Eva.

Novack's writing is beautiful in so many parts. The first chapter and the way that she told the story of Vicki's disappearance drew me in to this town and to the Kisch family in general. I remained interested in what would happen to all of the characters throughout, despite the fact that I didn't care for any of the adults. At some point we all need to let go of what happened to us in the past, especially if that has a negative impact on our parenting. The only problem I really had with this story was Sissy's name. I know there is Sissy Spacek, but I didn't like it. No matter how much she hated to be alone, I didn't think it fit Sissy's character. Regardless, I would highly recommend Precious to anyone who grew up in or lived through the 70s, experienced troubled teenage years, or enjoys reading novels about family dynamics. You will not be disappointed in this experience - so long as you're prepared and ready for a heavy read. This is a dark novel and it doesn't provide the reader with much emotional downtime.

http://literatehousewife.com/2009/05/164-precious-book-review-and-blog-tour/ show less

Precious is a portrait of a family, a family going through one of the toughest years of their existence. When the mother Natalia leaves her husband and daughters behind for something new, something with a new man they are left to pick up the pieces of their broken family. When summer arrives the girls are left home to fend for themselves and the older sister Eva takes off most days leaving Sissy to do anything she wants anywhere. Not the best idea when recently another neighborhood girl has show more gone missing.

I found Precious to be very haunting and heavy. While I did expect that I had hoped for it to let up at least a few more points than it did. I would have liked just a bit of humor or lightness somewhere just to lighten the mood if only slightly. There was one lighter passage that comes to mind though that I really liked, when Natalia and her husband Frank are going for a ride in his car. She remembers back to when they first met and started dating. I really found that passage very sweet. I also really liked some of the imagery described when the circus comes to town. I felt like I was there!

For me it was much easier to identify with the children, Eva and Sissy. I liked reading about Eva and how she was dealing with her broken family. It was interesting to see why she was in the relationship with her teacher and why he was in it with her. I liked that this book was told from the different characters perspectives. Seeing the different sides to the stories. Like others have said, a lot of times I felt worried for Sissy. Left to take care of herself for the better part of a day, who knows what could happen to her. Her imagination was so real to her I felt like it could have been the end of her a few times.

All in all an interesting look at a broken family trying to pick up the pieces that I know will appeal to a lot of readers out there. show less