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January 21st, 2010 Lesley - Central

Betsy Carter’s latest novel, The Puzzle King, is based on her great aunt and uncle’s lives in America in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  Simon Phelps and Flora Grossman are both sent to America by their families in hopes of a better life.  Simon arrives in 1892 as a young boy from Lithuania to avoid the army and grows up poor in New York’s Lower East Side.  Flora leaves Germany as a teenager to join her older sister and lives with relatives north of the city.  She eventually meets Simon at a dance and they marry in 1909.  Simon’s talent as an artist leads him to a successful career in window dressing and later advertising where he becomes known as the “Puzzle King” for the many jigsaw puzzles he creates as promotional products.

Meanwhile Flora’s older sister Seema renounces her Jewish faith and becomes a mistress to a married non-Jewish man while living in New York City.  In 1928 both Flora and Seema return to Europe after their mother dies to be with their sister Margot and reconnect with their young niece Edith.  Seema surprises herself and others with an unexpected connection to her homeland and decides to remain in Germany.  She falls in love with a journalist and converts to Catholicism.  In 1936 Simon and Flora return to Germany, this time with money and documents to help as many people as possible leave the country.

Even though this is the first book by Betsy Carter that I’ve read, I did attend the library’s Book Club Cafe a couple of years ago where she was the featured speaker.  She’s successfully combined her family’s history with events in post World War I America and Germany in interesting ways in this historical novel.

Entry Filed under: Historical Fiction