By Blood, Ellen Ullman, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2012, 378 pp
I have wanted to read this since it came out two years ago. It got picked from my list of suggestions by one of my reading groups and most of us liked the intricate plot, though a couple readers found too many improbabilities and one took issue with some of the Holocaust facts.
The setting is San Francisco in the 1970s. The subject matter is closed adoption, identity due to family influence vs lack of identity due to being adopted. Psychiatry, lesbian relationships, the Holocaust and Israel, and hardly a single balanced or likable character all added up to an ambitious mix. I could not put it down.
(By Blood is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)
No comments:
Post a Comment