Not Our Kind by Kitty Zeldis – 352 pages
Book Blurb:
One rainy morning in June, two years after the end of World War II, a minor traffic accident brings together Eleanor Moskowitz and Patricia Bellamy. Their encounter seems fated: Eleanor, a teacher and recent Vassar graduate, needs a job. Patricia’s difficult thirteen-year-old daughter Margaux, recovering from polio, needs a private tutor.
Though she feels out of place in the Bellamys’ rarefied and elegant Park Avenue milieu, Eleanor forms an instant bond with Margaux. Soon the idealistic young woman is filling the bright young girl’s mind with Shakespeare and Latin. Though her mother, a hat maker with a little shop on Second Avenue, disapproves, Eleanor takes pride in her work, even if she must use the name “Moss” to enter the Bellamys’ restricted doorman building each morning, and feels that Patricia’s husband, Wynn, may have a problem with her being Jewish.
Invited to keep Margaux company at the Bellamys’ country home in a small town in Connecticut, Eleanor meets Patricia’s unreliable, bohemian brother, Tom, recently returned from Europe. The spark between Eleanor and Tom is instant and intense. Flushed with new romance and increasingly attached to her young pupil, Eleanor begins to feel more comfortable with Patricia and much of the world she inhabits. As the summer wears on, the two women’s friendship grows—until one hot summer evening, a line is crossed, and both Eleanor and Patricia will have to make important decisions—choices that will reverberate through their lives.
My Review: 3.5 stars
Not Our Kind is a debut novel for the author and brings you to the heart of New York City in the late 1940s. The publisher’s blurb for this book is quite lengthy and summarizes the story quite well.
I believe in at the right time and right place encounters and this book hit that mark. When a literal accident brings two very different women together the plot ensues. One woman is a young Jewish teacher and the other an aristocratic WASP who is in need of a tutor for her polio stricken daughter.
Told through both of their points of view, we see the struggles they each endure; whether it’s because of religion, class, gender, misogyny or health issues. It would have been enlightening to hear parts of the story from Margaux for an outsider’s point of view. The romance in the story was a necessary change of pace, which I enjoyed. One issue I had is that I thought the book read too long, even though it was only 352 pages. Perhaps the romance parts could have been abbreviated? I’m not sure; I can’t put my finger on why I felt it was a long read, perhaps it’s just me. Who knows what else was going on while I was reading it that may have added to that opinion.
Overall, this book is a straightforward read, the writing is simple and tells a fine story. It’s easy to forget how Jews were treated directly after WW2; many people don’t realize that. The descriptions of New York City were stellar and it’s obvious that the author lives there or has lived there in the past. I’d classify this book as either Women’s Fiction or Historical Fiction Light.
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