Mutual Life & Casualty
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Mutual Life and Casualty is a 70s and 80s era coming of age story of two sisters, Hannah and Carolyn Kahn, who have a lot to contend with. More than anything, they face the dark cloud of their parentsâ fragile marriage: a workaholic insurance salesman father and shopaholic mother who would like to leave her loveless marriage but is too scared to do so. Add to that the ongoing social pressures of the time: womenâs changing roles, Vietnamâs lingering pall, and families breaking apart generally. Being the only jewish family in town further complicates the sistersâ lives. These interwoven stories integrate the lives of Hannah and Carolyn with those of several other town members.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Home is a battleground where lives are lived on autopilot in Poliner's auspicious debut collection of interwoven stories set primarily in 1970s suburban Connecticut. Sisters Hannah and Carolyn Kahn quietly inhabit a fragile home and suffer their parents' loveless marriage, an unhappy union that poisons their adolescence and haunts them as adults. Their beautiful mother, Naomi, is happiest when she is "absorbed" in volunteer work or an affair, seeking any distraction from her critical, demanding husband, Daniel, an overworked insurance executive who doles out affection via his checkbook. Hannah and Carolyn cling to their mother, reveling in their role as recipients of her confessions she is desperate for divorce, but too frightened to leave: "If I left... divorced what would I do?" As adults, the sisters find themselves paralyzed by their family history. Instead of pursuing a promising musical career, Hannah becomes a piano teacher trapped in a safe marriage, afraid to bear children. Carolyn, a successful consultant, escapes to Miami to divorce herself from her family and the "townyness" of Connecticut, but ultimately returns, realizing that she is a "bud waiting to bloom." Fully realized, sympathetic characters, frank exploration of women's self-assigned roles and tight writing make this a forthright, satisfying first effort.
