Catalog

Record Details

Catalog Search



Basic black with pearls

Image of item
Book
"A brilliant, lost feminist classic that is equal parts domestic drama and international intrigue. Shirley Kaszenbowski, nee Silverberg, is a middle-aged, middle-class woman in a Holt Renfrew tweed coat, a basic black dress, and a strand of real pearls. She may seem ordinary enough, pricing silk scarves at Eaton's or idling in hotel coffee shops, but in fact she is searching for her lover. He is an elusive figure, a man connected with "The Agency," a powerful technocrat who may or may not have suggested a rendezvous based on a secret code in the National Geographic. Her search takes her to the world of her past as a Jewish immigrant in the Spadina-Dundas area of Toronto. She finds the bakeries and rooming houses of her youth still haunted by survivors of postwar Europe and by her own memories of guilt and loss, while the consolations of art, opera, and pornography offer only echoes of her own illusions and desires. Her strange, wryly funny odyssey ends in a dramatic confrontation scene with her husband and "the other woman," as she trades in her basic black for another chance.In Basic Black with Pearls, Weinzweig displays her gift for creating sympathetic characters in a slightly surreal, but always recognizable world"--

Available copies

  • 5 of 5 copies available at Westchester Library System.

Current holds

0 current holds with 5 total copies.
Location Call Number /
Shelving Location
Barcode Status /
Due Date
Harrison Public Library WEINZWEIG, H. (Text)
Fiction
31010300154996
Available
-
New Rochelle Public Library WEINZWEIG (Text)
Fiction
31019156168026
Available
-
Scarsdale Public Library FICTION (Text)
Fiction
31029154175667
Available
-
Warner Library FICTION WEINZWEIG (Text)
Fiction
31033151942871
Available
-
White Plains Public Library FICTION (Text)
Fiction
31544200883049
Available
-

Additional Resources