Tapestry
A Novel
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4.4 • 60 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
“Belva Plain is a talented tale-spinner with an almost Dickensian ability to keep her stories going.”—Philadelphia Inquirer
Paul Werner watched the proud, daring immigrant Anna marry another man. But his desire for her haunts him...even after he weds the elegant Mimi, a woman of his own class. Now, as Paul wrestles with the dark demons of forbidden passion, his family and business are plunged into a maelstrom of tragedy and social changes. Ahead lie the dark days of the Depression, the rise of pure evil in Europe, and a war that will change the world forever. But for Paul Werner a more personal struggle awaits—a choice of a lifetime and a new beginning, or the most painful of final good-byes.
Belva Plain’s Tapestry takes up the threads of lives encountered in her beloved epic, Evergreen, to create an entirely new drama of a family’s loyalties and divisions, its secrets, and its destiny. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers who have not previously met the Werners and Roths in The Golden Cup and Evergreen will sense something missing when they begin this continuing saga about these tightly knit, aristocratic German-Jewish families. This book contains multiple allusions to past events, yet the first-time reader can still become immediately involved in the narrative, thanks to Plain's adroit blending of complex personalities with a panoramic view of world events. The novel covers the early '20s until the end of World War II. Paterfamilias is Paul Werner, a high-minded banker, a dedicated philanthropist and a reluctant adulterer. His genteel wife Marion, unable to bear children, coolly retreats to her private circle of charitable events and card parties. Although Paul still broods over his first love, Anna, he turns to his exuberant cousin Leah, a flourishing business woman, for a brief, happy affair. It is at a large family gathering that long pent-up emotions explode, and past tragedies, infidelities and hostilities emerge with destructive force. Although there is a historical inevitability to the events viewed here (the 1920 "Red scare''; Prohibition; the stock market crash; the rise of Hitler) the characters are never predictable. They act with passion and conviction, and their many vicissitudes will not disappoint Plain's fans. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections.
