Girls

by Elaine Kagan, Adelheid Zöfel (Translator), Cornelia Holfelder-von der Tann (Translator)

Overview

Ellen, Francis, Tee, Anita, Anne und Jessie, sechs ehemalige Freundinnen aus der High School, kommen nach über zwanzig Jahren wieder zusammen. Alte Erinnerungen werden aufgefrischt, aber auch lang verschwiegene Wahrheiten aufgedeckt. Was ist mit dem Schulschwarm Pete passiert, der ums Leben kam? Was ist aus den alten Träumen von Glück, Liebe, Freundschaft und Karriere geworden?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783688104963
Publisher:	Rowohlt Repertoire
Publication date:	08/18/2017
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	837 KB
Language:	German

About the Author

Elaine Kagan, geboren in St. Louis, Missouri, spielte in mehreren Filmen mit (unter anderem in Martin Scorseses «Goodfellas») und arbeitete für den Regisseur John Cassavetes.

Cornelia Holfelder-von der Tann, geboren 1950, beschloss nach dem Studium (Anglistik, Germanistik, Romanistik) und einem Lehramtsreferendariat, es mit dem literarischen Übersetzen zu probieren und ist seither hauptberuflich dabeigeblieben. 2021 wurde sie mit dem Übersetzerpreis für langjähriges Übersetzen, «Rebekka», ausgezeichnet.

Editorial Reviews

First-novelist Kagan is literate and intelligent, but her attempt at commercial fiction leaves a lot to be desired. The six ``girls'' who grew up together in Kansas City are now in their 50s, but they and their former boyfriends and current husbands have remained closely knit. When Jessie Chickery shoots her flagrantly womanizing husband Pete, each of the ``girls'' relates her version of the event, which entails recounting memories of their shared pasts in minute and often irrelevant detail. A thread through their stories is their secret relationships with Pete, who is variously depicted as cold and manipulative or caring and generous, having seduced and cruelly dropped some of the ``girls'' but made others feel loved, beautiful and needed. Kagan's attempt to delineate Pete's complicated personality via each character's first-person narration results in long monologues that sustain a note of histrionic self-indulgence. Though she tries to vary their voices, the women all sound alike, speaking in identical repetitive phrases and short, choppy sentences. One character says: ``I was drunk. I was.'' Another emotes: ``I can't do this. I just can't.'' A third: ``I knew I was alive. Alive for the first time.'' There is a sameness to their lives, too: they have all been sad and desperate and have had serious emotional breakdowns. A ridiculously melodramatic funeral scene seems written for a TV movie. 50,000 first printing; Literary Guild alternate. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This absorbing, cleverly crafted first novel begins and ends with the killing of Pete Chickery by his wife, Jessie. In between we learn just who he was from many points of views. Each chapter carries the distinct voice and perspective of friend or family as they gather for his funeral in Kansas City, Missouri. They share remembrances of all-American high school days, reveal shifting relationships, and recount the successes, losses, and betrayals of ordinary lives. The character of Pete develops through each reminiscence, materializing as the glue that holds the story and these lives together. He emerges as interestingly, realistically complex: adoring family man; irrepressible philanderer; abusive, controlling husband; traveling salesman; and devoted friend who is both thoroughly engaging and maddeningly oblivious to his wife's increasing despair. Recommended for fiction collections.-- Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.

Library Journal

Kagan may not have made a big name for herself as an actress, but her first novel may well establish her as a pop novelist. In flashback, she tells a bittersweet tale about a group of high-school friends, now in middle age, who are brought together by the death of the group's central figure, Pete. The book opens with the straitlaced Ellen telling the wilder Frances the unbelievable details surrounding Pete's gruesome death. But Kagan does not simply give ordinary, two-way dialogue; instead, it is only Ellen's voice we hear, never Frances'. In unusual but workable fashion, the dialogue shifts between third person as Ellen talks about Pete and first person when she remembers her encounters with him. Each following chapter is another friend's story, from which we learn that Pete was cruel, thoughtful, arrogant, selfish, giving, romantic, vengeful--it just depends on who's telling the story. The book culminates in the reunion of the group at the funeral and wake. The last two chapters, from the points of view of Pete's wife and of Pete himself, add a perfect mix of paradox and closure without resorting to absurd plot twists. Expect demand based on word of mouth and publisher publicity.

Mary Frances Wilkens