Tattoo for a Slave - by Hortense Calisher (Paperback)

About the Book

Although Calisher's family eventually migrated north to New York City, the echoes of their days as a slave-owning Jewish family in the South still resonate with this acclaimed author, who uncovers a part of history never before so strongly and tenderly revealed.

Book Synopsis

A "tattoo" is a bugle call, a summoning that lingers in the ear. Although Hortense Calisher's family eventually migrated north to New York City, the echoes of their days as a slave-owning Jewish family in the South still resonate with this acclaimed author, who uncovers a part of history never before so strongly and tenderly revealed.
Calisher traces her family's years in the South and their transformative move up north, beautifully evoking the mood and texture of the early twentieth century. Her Virginia-born father, a perfume manufacturer, was twenty-two years older than her German-born mother. Marked by longer-than-normal gaps between the generations and conflicts between the mercantile and the scholarly, the "American" and the émigré, her family is characterized by Calisher as "volcanic to meditative to fruitfully dull, and bound to produce someone interested in character, society, and time."

From the Back Cover

"Offers more than enough reward as it lets family history illuminate . . . a national history."--The Seattle Times
A "tattoo" is a bugle call, a summoning that lingers in the ear. Although Hortense Calisher's family eventually migrated north to New York City, the echoes of their days as a slave-owning family in the South still resonate with this acclaimed author. Her Virginia-born father, a perfume manufacturer, was twenty-two years older than her German-born mother. Marked by longer-than-normal gaps between the generations and conflicts between the mercantile and the scholarly, the "American" and the emigre, her family is characterized by Calisher as "volcanic to meditative to fruitfully dull, and bound to produce someone interested in character, society, and time."
Hortense Calisher is past president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and PEN. Three-time finalist for the National Book Award, she is the author of many distinguished novels and short stories. She lives in New York City.
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Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR SUNDAY JEWS
"The wonderful Sunday Jews is unique in her oeuvre: it is at once an old-fashioned family saga, with plot twists worthy of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, and, like that novel, a delicate, compassionate meditation on the inheritance and creation of religious, familial, and individual identity."-The New York Times Book Review
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About the Author

HORTENSE CALISHER is past president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and PEN. Three-time finalist for the National Book Award, she is the author of many novels and short stories. She lives in New York City.