1930s
40s
A01=Cathleen Schine
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Austria
Author_Cathleen Schine
automatic-update
beach read
Category1=Fiction
Category=FA
Category=FBA
Category=FV
coming of age
contemporary
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
dual timeline
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_historical-fiction
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
Greta Garbo
Hollywood
humor
Language_English
literary fiction
Nazis
PA=Available
pandemic
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
refugees
softlaunch
Venice Beach
World War II
WWII
Product details
- ISBN 9781250892492
- Weight: 252g
- Dimensions: 141 x 214mm
- Publication Date: 15 Apr 2024
- Publisher: Henry Holt & Company Inc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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For years Mamie Künstler, ninety-three years old, as clever and glamorous as ever, has lived happily in her bungalow in Venice, California, with her inscrutable housekeeper and her gigantic St. Bernard. Their tranquility is upended when Mamie’s grandson Julian arrives from New York City. Like many a twentysomething, he has come to seek his fortune in Hollywood. But it is 2020, the global pandemic sweeps in, and Julian’s short visit suddenly has no end in sight.
Mamie was only eleven when the Künstlers escaped Vienna in 1939. They made their way, stunned and overwhelmed, to sunny, surreal Los Angeles, where they joined a colony of distinguished Jewish musicians, writers, and intellectuals also escaping Hitler. Now, faced with months of lockdown and a willing listener, Mamie begins to tell Julian the buried stories of her years in Los Angeles: her escapades with eminent émigrés like Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood, Thomas Mann. Oh, and Greta Garbo. While the pandemic cuts Julian off from the life he knows, Mamie’s tales open up a world of lives that came before him. They reveal to him just how much the past holds of the future.
Cathleen Schine is the author of The Grammarians, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, and The Love Letter, among other novels. She has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review. She lives in Los Angeles.
