Not Our Kind
| Modern Age |
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 Not Our Kind
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American History > Modern Age > Jewish History
With echoes of Rules of Civility and The Boston Girl, a compelling and thought-provoking novel set in postwar New York City, about two women—one Jewish, one a WASP—and the wholly unexpected consequences of their meeting.
One rainy morning in June, two years after the end of World War II, a minor traffic accident brings together Eleanor Moskowitz and Patricia Bellamy. Their encounter seems fated: Eleanor, a teacher and recent Vassar graduate, needs a job. Patricia’s difficult thirteen-year-old daughter Margaux, recovering from polio, needs a private tutor.
Though she feels out of place in the Bellamys’ rarefied and elegant Park Avenue milieu, Eleanor forms an instant bond with Margaux. Soon the idealistic young woman is filling the bright young girl’s mind with Shakespeare and Latin. Though her mother, a hat maker with a little shop on Second Avenue, disapproves, Eleanor takes pride in her work, even if she must use the name "Moss" to enter the Bellamys’ restricted doorman building each morning, and feels that Patricia’s husband, Wynn, may have a problem with her being Jewish.
Invited to keep Margaux company at the Bellamys’ country home in a small town in Connecticut, Eleanor meets Patricia’s unreliable, bohemian brother, Tom, recently returned from Europe. The spark between Eleanor and Tom is instant and intense. Flushed with new romance and increasingly attached to her young pupil, Eleanor begins to feel more comfortable with Patricia and much of the world she inhabits. As the summer wears on, the two women’s friendship grows—until one hot summer evening, a line is crossed, and both Eleanor and Patricia will have to make important decisions—choices that will reverberate through their lives.
Gripping and vividly told, Not Our Kind illuminates the lives of two women on the cusp of change—and asks how much our pasts can and should define our futures.
Emily's Review
I found the premise of this story very interesting - can a Jewish woman make her way in the world independently in the 1940s? What does she have to change or hide about herself in order to do so?
Eleanor Moskowitz was a wonderful heroine. She was strong and independent and very smart. I loved seeing her relationship with Margaux - I think that was my favorite part of the novel. What I didn't love was Margaux's parents. At it's core, this is a book about Patricia and Wynn Bellamy's marriage and how it deteriorates over the course of the story with Eleanor as the catalyst. Wynn is very antisemitic and sexist and overall is just a horrible person and I found myself despising Patricia for ignoring his bad behavior so that she didn't have to damage her social standing as a divorcee.
Overall, I found this book to be an interesting portrayal of what it was like to be an American Jew in the years just after WWII. I just wish more of the story could have been about that rather than the Bellamy's marriage.
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