The Deadwood Beetle: A Novel

ISBN: 1587888149

Author: Dressler, Mylene

Condition: Used

From AudioFile Elderly entomologist Tristan Martens finds his Dutch mother's sewing table in a New York antique shop. The discovery triggers painful memories from the Holocaust, as well as a nascent romance with the store's proprietor. David Darlow's reading is undynamic; this is a good thing because you need to concentrate on what Martens is saying in this highly personal story. Other characters--the conscientious and kind graduate student; his Jewish love, Clara; his Nazi-collaborator father--exist as he sees them. Martens himself sounds world-weary and tormented, though every so often he allows himself to hope. "Beetle" bears hearing more than once for its beautiful prose and many levels of meaning. J.B.G. AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright AudioFile, Portland, Maine Product Description Tristan Martens, a retired entomologist, is shaken by the discovery of his mother's sewing table in a New York antique shop. He hasn't seen it since he was a boy in Holland, but he vividly remembers the last time he did. Only Tristan knows the painful truth behind the scrawled - and misunderstood - inscription on the bottom of the table, and he embarks on a scheme to acquire it from the shop's owner, Cora Lowenstein, who insists it's not for sale. But as their lives become entangled, Tristan must make a choice. Can he tell Cora the truth? Begun in deceit, their relationship and Tristan's salvation hinge on his willingness to confront and finally confess the terrible secrets of his family's past. In startlingly beautiful prose resonant with dramatic tension, Mylene Dressler tells the heartrending story of an old man taking his last chance and struggling toward an elusive redemption and the even more distant hope of love. About the Author Mylene Dressler was born in the Hague, Netherlands, and has lived in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. The author of the critically acclaimed The Medusa Tree, she now lives in Houston, where she is at work on her next book