Betsy Carter

I can't begin to imagine leaving my country and immigrating to another as an unaccompanied child. My own children would forget their heads if they weren't firmly attached to their bodies. And yet countless numbers of children were hugged and kissed by their mothers and fathers and put on a boat to America in search of a better life and more opportunity than they could ever hope to have staying where they were. Betsy Carter has taken family lore and woven a story for two such children who show more grew up to live the immigrant's dream and to help countless others escape the gathering clouds of WWII.

The novel opens with the beautiful Flora Phelps standing in line at the American consulate in Stuttgart, Germany determined to get her family out of Hitler's Germany and setting the stage for the tale of Flora and husband Simon's lives as immigrants from Lithuania and Germany respectively. The story then immediately drops back in time to just before he turn of the century and switches focus to introduce little Simon Phelps. His widowed mother worked for months to be able to send 9 year old Simon to America, a place full of the opportunities that his native Vilna didn't hold. When she kissed him goodbye, she told him that she and all of his siblings would join him when he was grown and had a house. And so this artistic young boy travelled across an ocean and stumbled upon a boarding house of good people and set about making his way in this new world, working and going to school both.

Meanwhile, Flora Grossman also emigrated to America, sent as a girl from Germany to live with her older sister in the home of her mother's relatives. She is raised in relative comfort and easily assimilates into her new country, although unlike her older sister she does not try to hide or deny her Jewish heritage. Going to a dance with her sister one night, she meets the sweet and shy Simon Phelps and ultimately marries the talented and innovative man.

Simon's phenomenal success in the advertising business doesn't entirely hide the sorrow he feels at being unable to locate any of his family back in Vilna and so Simon embraces Flora's family wholeheartedly. As they are unable to have their own children, they dote on Flora's niece Edith, inviting her to come to them from Germany to recover well from a serious illness. Through Edith's eyes, the austerity of Germany post-WWI and the hardships faced, especially by the Jews, are terribly evident and in complete contrast to the life that Simon and Flora live in America. All is not perfect for them either as anti-Semitism continues to rear its ugly head. But it is what is not said in younger sister Margot's letters from Germany that is most alarming. As the news becomes more and more troubling, the narrative picks up speed racing to the conclusion foreshadowed in the prologue.

As a story of immigrants, this is a familiar one: person comes to America and through hard work becomes a phenomenal success. What is unusual is the mournful looking backward towards the family left behind or lost. The desire to be reunited drives the plot through decades, even before liberating their Jewish families becomes a matter of life and death. The beginning and middle of the book are evenly paced and solidly written. The ending is much more rushed and scantily written, leaving it feeling slightly imcomplete. Perhaps Carter felt more able to elaborate and flesh out the tale when there was no family history available to her and was more constrained once she reached the point where history takes up again. Flora and Simon were both lovely characters complete with the small personality quirks that made them fully realized and realistic. And Carter has captured beautifully the desire for assimilation felt so strongly by many immigrants in the enticing and ultimately sad character of Flora's glamorous sister Seema. The importance of family, the forces that shape us, and what drives us to rise above the ordinary are all here between these pages offering book clubs a wealth of discussion topics. Those interested in the immigrant experience, in the air in America prior to WWII, and Jewish life from the turn of the century until the eve of Hitler's ultimate dominance will also enjoy this read. show less

It took me a little while to get into this book. Even though Egon's parents are rich and famous, they are very strange. They don't really like people other than each other and that was fine by me. I felt really sorry for Egon. His mother included him in things, but after she died, he was pretty much on his own.

This story takes place before and during the round up of the Jews. Egon and his friends saw it happening but could not believe that it could happen to them. They finally left Europe, show more Egon an ophthalmologist, and his friend, Meyer, was an author. When they got to America, both were neither of those. They were not citizens and their fame in Europe stayed there.

I really enjoyed the story especially the articles that Meyer would write about his group of friends. I found it very interesting how long it took people to figure out what exactly was going on with the Jews. I guess because it was too horrific to believe. And, each character had their own feelings and thoughts about what was happening or not happening.

I was kind of sad when the book ended, as I had to leave them.

Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. show less

The Puzzle King, by Betsy Carter is a well-written novel, based on Clark’s ancestors and family legends.

The novel opens in March 1936, in Stuttgart, Germany, where a woman named Flora stood in line waiting to see the consul. The story line then moves to 1892, and back and forth through the decades between 1892 and 1936. The main characters in The Puzzle King are Simon Phelps, and Flora Grossman.

Their lives have strange twists, as each one of them emigrates to America. Simon, a Jewish boy, show more is sent by his mother from Vilna, Lithuania to New York City in 1892, at the age of nine in order to build a new life for himself, and eventually for his family. She promised him that once he was established with a house, she and his siblings would join him. The void of familial loss was ever present throughout his life.

lora, from a Jewish family, emigrated from Germany with her sister Seema, to Mount Kisco, New York, where they stayed with relatives of her mother. The two sisters left behind their mother and their sister, Margot. Flora and Seema came of age in America, each one assimilating and adjusting in different manners.

Betsy Carter has brought us a story that is heartfelt, poignant, and one with the presence of constant yearning, yearning for those left behind, and yearning for the smells, tastes, warm touches and the comforting sights of what once was. As immigrants, and assimilating into a new environment and way of life, Simon and Flora’s positive experiences never overpowered those desires and voids in their lives. Those longings encompass the pages. show less

We Were Strangers Once by [Carter, Betsy]I was given this book by NetGalley however the review is my own honest opinion

I found this book lyrical and tender in a way. The book is set in Germany, during Hitler's time, and in Washington Heights. It talks about the people who have to leave one country to live somewhere else. I felt like I could relate to the characters and the journey they made felt real. I enjoyed this book and I recommend it to all.