Starting with Serge - Hardcover

Stone, Laurie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385263082 ISBN 13: 9780385263085

Publisher: Doubleday, 1990

Leaving behind their Jewish heritage and Manhattan's Lower East Side for the swank suburbs of Long Island, plump, awkward Julie Stark and her family--unable to cope with their new life--seek the help of Serge, a sophisticated, reputedly brilliant Freudian psychologist

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From Publishers Weekly:

This first novel by Village Voice writer Stone is built around an irresistible premise--the manipulation of a family by a brilliant but Machiavellian psychoanalyst. Serge Lodst, a Russian emigre whose accent is "full of Germanic crunches, Slavic slurs and French slides," treats the entire Stark family, including Herschel, a coat manufacturer; his wife, Thea, a mah-jongg-playing suburban matron; and their two bored and spoiled teenaged daughters, Madelyn and Julie. Aunts, uncles and cousins are also among his adoring patients who feel they are part of a charmed circle. Set in New York in the '50s and '60s, the story is narrated by Julie, whose encounters with the doctor pivot on his attempts to seduce her. As she grows up, Julie retains shame and ambivalence in her feelings about Serge. When Herschel dies, she looks for answers and ultimately learns to coexist with her rage. Written in clear, imaginative language, the novel moves along gracefully, though rarely achieving any real flights. As a chronicle of postwar New York Jewish life, it's evocative and amusing; as a portrait of the possible abuses of the psychoanalytic relationship, it's a cautionary tale. And the underlying precision and urgency of the narrative one gives the book an almost documentary feeling, which adds a note of real-life verisimilitude.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

All of 14 as this debut novel opens, Julie Stark is fat, precocious, and determined to find her place in a status-seeking family hoping to shake the yoke of their Jewish European heritage by moving from Manhattan's Lower East Side to a glitzy Long Island suburb. Once settled, Julie's parents, sister, aunt, uncle, and family friends all see brilliant Freudian psychologist Serge, to whom Julie is also sent when she has problems managing at Windsor, a school filled with girls in their Pappagallos. The result is traumatic for Julie. Serge, having suppressed his past (pubescent sisters killed in the Holocaust), now violates Julie's emerging sexuality. As an adult, Julie works out some of her fears when she is called on to be parent to her parents. Nevertheless, the real violation is not by Serge but by the author, who uses the Holocaust as a cheap shot. Although this book is easy to read, funny, and incisive, it is difficult to defend.
- Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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