Floating in My Mother's Palm is the compelling and mystical story of Hanna Malter, a young girl growing up in 1950's Burgdorf, the small German town Ursula Hegi so brilliantly brought to life in her bestselling novel Stones from the River. Hanna's courageous voice evokes her unconventional mother, who swims during thunderstorms; the illegitimate son of an American GI, who learns from Hanna about his father; and the librarian, Trudi Montag, who lets Hanna see her hometown from a dwarf's extraordinary point of view. Although Ursula Hegi wrote Floating in My Mother's Palm first, it can be read as a sequel to Stones from the River.
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From Publishers Weekly
This impeccably crafted, intensely moving novel, whose narrator is a young girl in post-WW II Germany, confirms Hegi ( Intrusions ) as an exceptionally talented writer. In short chapters that glow with the luminosity of Impressionist paintings, Hegi illuminates Hanna Malter's family and the other inhabitants of a small town on the Rhein.stet sp Her mother, a painter, is a risk-taker who has lost her faith in organized religion but teaches Hanna to have confidence in the powers of nature; her father is a kindly dentist who enjoys the security of an orderly life. Other village residents--a dwarf who is the town gossip, the illegitimate son of an American soldier, an architect whose dreams of death come true in a bizarre fashion, a teenager impregnated by her grandfather--are seemingly ordinary people whose quiet existences mask their sadness or desperation. While she obliquely exposes their secret lives, Hanna also reveals herself as a typical adolescent, whose rashly candid tongue sometimes wounds her friends. Some of the parables are a little too neat, but in general these finely tuned, interlocked vignettes convey both the essence of childhood and the spiritual emptiness of a community unwilling to confront the implications of the recent war. Building in power, the novel offers transcendent moments that affirm the need for some sort of faith to add meaning to our lives.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This novel of a girlhood in a small German town in the Fifties memorably recalls a time and place and people. Hitler is not mentioned at school. The unspoken and unspeakable extend from the past to the postwar present in a series of intimate vignettes and tales about the townspeople--family secrets and tragedies, accidents, suicides, murders, incest, and grotesqueries told with the spellbinding grace and beauty of old ballads and a touch of the Brothers Grimm. Young Hanna's reckless mother is an artist both fascinated and confined by the town. Daring to swim during a thunderstorm, she initiates her daughter into a fierce and joyous love of life as they dance together in the water. The moment confers a healing benediction on Hanna's sometimes painful and mysterious rite of passage. An exceptional work, recommended for most fiction collections.
- Mary Soete, San Diego P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Mary Soete, San Diego P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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When my mother entered her tenth month of carrying me, I stopped moving inside her womb. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
When my mother entered her tenth month of carrying me, I stopped moving inside her womb. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By Busy Mom
Format:Paperback
I have read her novel, Stones from the River, and because of that novel, I didn't hesitate to buy this one. I still don't regret buying this novel. It's beautifully written, lyrically so and haunting.
Hanna loses her mother at a young age but this book is not only a reflection of her mother, but of the people and their stories in her town. Told from Hanna's point of view and at different ages, the people in that town becomes alive through her eyes. She makes them real. She makes their stories real and valid.
It is an emotional book ~~ where her housekeeper's son finds out he's illegimate; where she watches her childhood friend raped by her grandfather give up the baby she had come to love; watches her neighbor in the apartment above them give himself to man after man who degrades him. And other stories as well.
This is a book perfect for reading groups to read and to discuss ~~ there are lots of different stories in here and it's not written poorly like too many other books out there today.
12-18-03
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book has left an indelible impression. Everything Ursula Hegi has written has been enjoyable, moving, and thought-provoking, but this little book overwhelmed me. Images from the book have stayed with me over the years; some sad and some uplifting. A remarkable book.
Format:Paperback
Floating in My Mother's Palm was a great book. There were many themes in the book, but only a couple stood out the most for me. Faith most definitely was a primary theme in this book. Faith came into place when Hanna's grandmother had a disease that spread throughout her body. It also came into place when Hanna's friend had polio in her leg. Hanna rubbed holy water on the little girl's leg that she had stolen from church. Both the girls believed and had faith that by doing this the little girl's leg would heal.
Fear was also incorporated into this book. In took place in a one of the chapter's where a man by the name of Siegfried Tegern kept having a bad dream about dying. This fear compelled him to buy several dogs to protect him, which in the end, became his destruction.
Fear was also incorporated into this book. In took place in a one of the chapter's where a man by the name of Siegfried Tegern kept having a bad dream about dying. This fear compelled him to buy several dogs to protect him, which in the end, became his destruction.
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4.5 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautifully written chronicle of a town--and a life
In the tight community of Burgdorf, a girl observes the foibles of the town's people as they go about their lives. Read more
Published on Feb 2 2003 by Talia Carner
5.0 out of 5 stars
A snippet of a life
RECOLLECTION OF A YOUNG LIFE BEFORE THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER. The book is aptly named. Floating in my Mother's palm is a girl's (Hanna) recollection of different bits and pieces of... Read more
Published on Jun 19 2001 by atmj
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Written, Well Told
There are two things that must come together to form an excellent novel - a good story and the ability to find the words to tell it. Read more
Published on May 30 2001 by Maurice Williams
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Written, Well Told .. .
There are two things that must come together to form an excellent novel - a good story and the ability to find the words to tell it. Read more
Published on May 23 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rich and Poetic
Rich with a poetic style and flavor all its own, Floating in My Mother's Palm, is a beautiful exploration of the complexities of small towns. Read more
Published on Mar 9 2001 by Kaya McLaren
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Absolute Treat
There are few better artists than Hegi when it comes to evoking a sense of longing and hope as she delves deeply into the created characters. Read more
Published on May 1 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
A delectable slice of provincial life
If Ursula Hegi's "Floating In My Mother's Palm" doesn't read like a novel, it's because it is a collection of loosely but seamlessly connected short stories which offer... Read more
Published on Mar 5 2000
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Companion to Stones from the River
The question here is which book to you read first the prequel - "Stones from the River" or "Floating in My Mother's Palm"? Read more
Published on Feb 21 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poignant stories--fragments that (nearly) coalese to a novel
This book, written before "Stones from the River" is almost a collection of stories that, taken together, form a novel about a townspeople's postwar lives in Nazi... Read more
Published on Nov 14 1998 by lytel@batnet.com
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read it before "Stones From The River"
I loved this book of small town characters described by a young girl growing up in Germany in the 50-ies. Read more
Published on Nov 2 1998 by Fizyka Pomaga
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