As Close to Us as Breathing

by Elizabeth Poliner

Overview

A multigenerational family saga about the long-lasting reverberations of one tragic summer by "a wonderful talent [who] should be read widely" (Edward P. Jones).

In 1948, a small stretch of the Woodmont, Connecticut shoreline, affectionately named "Bagel Beach," has long been a summer destination for Jewish families. Here sisters Ada, Vivie, and Bec assemble at their beloved family cottage, with children in tow and weekend-only husbands who arrive each Friday in time for the Sabbath meal.

During the weekdays, freedom reigns. Ada, the family beauty, relaxes and grows more playful, unimpeded by her rule-driven, religious husband. Vivie, once terribly wronged by her sister, is now the family diplomat and an increasingly inventive chef. Unmarried Bec finds herself forced to choose between the family-centric life she's always known and a passion-filled life with the married man with whom she's had a secret years-long affair.

But when a terrible accident occurs on the sisters' watch, a summer of hope and self-discovery transforms into a lifetime of atonement and loss for members of this close-knit clan. Seen through the eyes of Molly, who was twelve years old when she witnessed the accident, this is the story of a tragedy and its aftermath, of expanding lives painfully collapsed. Can Molly, decades after the event, draw from her aunt Bec's hard-won wisdom and free herself from the burden that destroyed so many others?

Elizabeth Poliner is a masterful storyteller, a brilliant observer of human nature, and in As Close to Us as Breathing she has created an unforgettable meditation on grief, guilt, and the boundaries of identity and love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316384117
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	32,933
File size:	604 KB

About the Author

Elizabeth Poliner is the author of Mutual Life & Casualty, a novel-in-stories, and the forthcoming collection of poems, What You Know in Your Hands. Her stories and poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals. A recipient of seven individual artist grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, she has also been awarded fiction scholarships to the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers' conferences. She teaches creative writing at Hollins University.

Editorial Reviews

★ 2015-12-10
Poliner's follow-up to Mutual Life & Casualty (2005) limns a Jewish family too close-knit for its individual members' good. "The summer of 1948 my brother Davy was killed in an accident," Molly tells us in her first sentence. Twelve years old at the time, she looks back from the vantage point of 1999 to consider the fraught family dynamic that contributed to the accident. The Syrkin sisters—Vivie, Bec, and Molly's mother, Ada—summer every year with their families on "Bagel Beach," one of the few portions of the Connecticut shore open to Jews. Their distrust of outsiders is understandable, with the Holocaust a recent memory, but as Molly's narration delves into dramas from before and after Davy's death, we see that the family's collective needs too often take precedence over personal happiness—especially if it involves moving beyond their tight little community's boundaries. Molly's uncle Nelson lost the love of his life when he dutifully went to work in the family department store instead of pursuing the academic career he wanted. Her brother Howard, in love with an Irish Catholic girl, rejects her after Davy's death, seeing it as punishment for being "self-indulgent." Molly's cousin Nina also takes away from the accident a deep sense of guilt and unworthiness to be loved that scars her life. Warm scenes of Shabbos dinners and summer leisure evoke the appeal of this sheltering world, but an ugly quarrel between Molly's parents makes clear that it's governed by strict rules, and those who violate them will be punished. Selfish, fun-loving, ultimately devastated Ada is perhaps the most emotionally tangled family member, but Poliner depicts each character with sensitivity and insight. Molly's coming-of-age is the delicate connective tissue that binds together the novel's chronologically fragmented episodes, revealing them as pieces in a mosaic of enlarged understanding—the narrator's and ours. Beautifully written, stringently unsentimental, and yet tender in its empathy for the perennial human conflict between service and self.

Kirkus Reviews

…resonant, sensitively observed…Much of the action takes place in childhood, and Poliner has a keen eye for the awkwardness and sudden leaping insights of adolescents on the brink of adulthood…Poliner is an effective chronicler of that fraught interspace where ancient Jewish custom butts up against the shiny modernity of American life…[She] deserves kudos for the warm, particularized light in which she dresses her many characters. As Close to Us as Breathing is a big-hearted roundelay of a novel that, among other things, performs the invaluable service of recovering a lost world.

The New York Times Book Review - Eli Gottlieb

01/25/2016
Poliner’s (Mutual Life & Casualty) novel is an exquisitely written investigation of grief and atonement, and an elegy for a Jewish family bound together by tradition and tribe. The three Syrkin sisters, Ada, Vivie, and Bec, and their children spend their summers—joined by their husbands on the weekend—at the family cottage in the Jewish section of Woodmont, Conn., known as Bagel Beach. In the summer of 1948, though, “our worlds collapsed... we made sure they did,” after the accidental death of Ada and Mort’s youngest, Davy. The prices paid for redemption, necessary or not, are highest for Bec, the only unmarried Syrkin sister, and Ada and Mort’s oldest son, Howard. Also affected is Davy’s sister and the book’s narrator, Molly, 12 at the time. Tradition and “doing right” run through the novel, extending back a generation and tying together Mort’s bachelor brother Nelson, Bec, and Howard in a wonderfully sad synchronicity. That Molly reveals so little of herself while stories unfold all around her is a marvelous device Poliner uses to impel the reader forward. Agent: Duvall Osteen, the Aragi Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Vivid, complex, and beautifully written, Elizabeth Poliner's novel, As Close to Us as Breathing, brims with characters who leave an indelible impression on the mind and heart. This moving story of the way one unforgettable family struggles with love and loss shows an uncommon depth of human understanding. Elizabeth Poliner is a wonderful talent and she should be read widely, and again and again." —Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World

"What a lovely, lovely book." —Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge

"Poliner depicts each character with sensitivity and insight...Beautifully written, stringently unsentimental, and yet tender in its empathy for the perennial human conflict between service and self."—Kirkus (Starred Review)

"Poliner's novel is an exquisitely written investigation of grief and atonement, and an elegy for a Jewish family bound together by tradition and tribe."—Publishers Weekly

"Beautiful.... A nuanced, intricate family drama that explores their tight culture at a turning point.... [It's] the kind of novel you sink into blissfully. It casts a spell.... [Poliner's] characters seem so real, so multi-dimensional, so sympathetic even when they mess up that you have to shake yourself back to the present each time you put down the book.... As Close to Us As Breathing is a marvel of artful storytelling."—NPR.org

"Resonant, sensitively observed...Poliner has a keen eye for the awkwardness and sudden leaping insights of adolescents on the brink of adulthood....Poliner also deserves kudos for the warm, particularized light in which she dresses her many characters. As Close to Us as Breathing is a big-hearted roundelay of a novel that, among other things, performs the invaluable service of recovering a lost world."—New York Times Book Review

"If summer, for you, recalls days spent by the seashore, Poliner's saga of three Jewish sisters and the beachfront cottage they share with their families—until life-altering tragedy strikes—will enthrall you."
—O, the Oprah Magazine

"An instant classic.... Poliner handles the texture of Jewish family life with brilliance, authenticity, and a touch of wistfulness."
—Jewish Book Council

"Superb...As Close to Us as Breathing is a beautiful, complex, character-driven novel. In the author's capable hands, every one of Poliner's characters feels real. And, just as in reality, some of them succumb to life's challenging circumstances. And, just as in reality, some of them succumb to life's challenging circumstances. And some of them ultimately soar."
—Jerusalem Post

From the Publisher

01/01/2016
Tragedies define lives, and Poliner (Mutual Life & Casualty) demonstrates how a tragic accident shatters the extended Syrkin and Liebritsky families during an idyllic summer at a Connecticut beach. From the outset, the reader knows that Davy, the youngest child, will die in an accident; however, it is only in the last few pages that the fatal incident occurs. In between, the author explores the backstories of the Syrkin sisters, Liebritsky brothers, and their children; she moves forward in time to relate the fates of all the family members in the decades after the loss of Davy and reveals the secrets each individual is keeping. Poliner's empathy for her characters pulls the reader into this saga of a Jewish family in the mid-20th century. Each family member is struggling to live up to the expectations of their parents. Everyone is looking for love, despite the knowledge that its ideal form is not to be found. VERDICT This elegant novel is for readers who enjoy the depiction of complicated family dynamics and those who believe that people will be able to overcome tragic events. [See Prepub Alert, 9/28/15.]—Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

Library Journal