Sociologist Minka Pradelski's years of research into the effects of the Holocaust on its survivors inform her moving but surprisingly playful debut novel, Here Comes Mrs. Kugelman. When Tsippy Silberberg's Aunt Halina passes away in Tel Aviv, she leaves Tsippy a curious inheritance: an incomplete silver fish service in an old brown suitcase. While she could have the cutlery shipped to her, Tsippy decides a trip to Tel Aviv might be just the thing to help her recover from a strange addiction.
Tsippy is hooked on ice-cold temperatures, to the point that she eats only bags of vegetables from the freezer section of the grocery store, without so much as thawing them first. Her dietary oddities make travel nearly impossible and severely hamper her social life. With no marriage prospects, Tsippy knows breaking her strange habit will help the situation.
Her trip to Tel Aviv takes a sudden nosedive, however, when her hotel gives her reserved room to another traveler. After booking into an allegedly better establishment, Tsippy finds herself chosen for a dubious honor: Mrs. Kugelman, a survivor of the Jewish ghettos from the World War II era, has chosen Tsippy to hear the stories of her hometown of Bedzin, Poland, so that her long-dead friends and neighbors may live once again in the retelling.
At first, Tsippy tries to escape her role as unwilling audience as Mrs. Kugelman inexorably continues reciting tales of her school days. Soon, however, Tsippy begins to appreciate Mrs. Kugelman's companionship and to hunger for more stories of Bedzin, a village that doesn't match the terrifying picture of Polish history Tsippy gleaned from her father. The stories eventually change character, though; as Mrs. Kugelman says, "Peaceful times give way to war... I can't spare you."
While the Holocaust is a frequent subject in fiction, Pradelski takes a different angle with this meditation on the effects of the Holocaust on its survivors and, by extension, their descendants. The secondhand focus allows Pradelski to build two charming and often humorous stories, that of Tsippy's search for her identity and her future and that of the people of Bedzin, while subtly showing the contrast between the pre-war and post-war mentalities of Jewish survivors. The result is a dual narrative that manages to carry off both sweetness and pathos seamlessly, leaving the reader to ponder the power of hope over sorrow. --Jaclyn Fulwood
Shelf Talker: A Polish Holocaust survivor in Israel chooses a young Jewish woman visiting from America to hear the stories of her friends, family and town before the Nazis destroyed everything.