About this item
Highlights
- "A vibrant, terrific novel" -- Joan SilberHinnefeld's web of characters are bound by legacies, genes, philanthropy, and chance but gravitate largely around Charlie, a rich, white, college graduate who ends up in Venice.
- Author(s): Joyce Hinnefeld
- 176 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Literary
Description
Book Synopsis
"A vibrant, terrific novel" -- Joan Silber
Hinnefeld's web of characters are bound by legacies, genes, philanthropy, and chance but gravitate largely around Charlie, a rich, white, college graduate who ends up in Venice. He's struggling to understand how his significant privilege has destroyed a romantic relationship, but he draws unwanted interest from other quarters with his interest in the writing of Ezra Pound. His Dreamer ex-girlfriend, Min, becomes a nurse and is overwhelmed by caregiving and loss, including the untimely death of a Vietnam veteran who works as a gardener for Charlie's mother.
In this novel that spans generations, though, it is Charlie's great-great grandmother, who cherished a forbidden love for a Vaudevillian male impersonator, that defines his life. She is the source of his wealth but also mother to his lonely great-aunt, who in the end controls how he's raised.
Hinnefeld writes about harsh realities, the importance of connection, and tender hearts in a fragile world. Yet she also writes of the hope and healing found in planting gardens, in poetry and art, and in families forged from abiding love and respect rather than bound only by blood.
Review Quotes
"How beautifully knit The Dime Museum is -- as soon as I finished it, I went right back to the beginning, to see the full span of it and to put together the wonderful complications of the characters. A vibrant, terrific novel." -- Joan Silber
The Dime Museum "follows a Big Pharma family over the course of several generations, with an emphasis on how social repression and unchecked privilege can both thwart lives. . . . An expert example of a complicated form that will reward even more on subsequent readings." -- Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review