248 pages

English

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Fortune Teller's Kiss , livre ebook

Nebraska Paperback - Brenda Serotte

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248 pages

English

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There was always the incantation: “Whoever wishes you harm, may harm come to them!” And just in case that didn’t work, there were garlic and cloves to repel the Evil Eye—or, better yet, the dried foreskin from a baby boy’s circumcision, ground to a fine powder. But whatever precautions Brenda Serotte was subjected to, they were not enough. Shortly before her eighth birthday, in the fall of 1954, she came down with polio—painfully singled out in a world already marked by differences. Her bout with the dreaded disease is at the heart of this poignant and heartbreakingly hilarious memoir of growing up a Sephardic Jew among Ashkenazi neighbors in the Bronx.

This was a world of belly dancers and fortune tellers, shelter drills and vast quantities of Mediterranean food; a world of staunchly joined and endlessly contrary aunts and uncles, all drawn here in loving, merciless detail. The Fortune Teller’s Kiss is a heartfelt tribute to a disappearing culture and a paean to the author’s truly quirky clan, especially her beloved champion, her father. It is also a deft and intimate cultural history of the Bronx fifty years ago and of its middle-class inhabitants, their attitudes toward contagious illness, womanly beauty, poverty, and belonging.

Sujets

Lettres et linguistique

Informations

Publié par	Nebraska Paperback
Date de parution	01 mars 2006
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780803253872
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	6 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0950€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Fortune Teller’s Kiss Brenda Serotte

University of Nebraska Press

Lincoln and London

Source acknowledgments for previously published

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Serotte, Brenda. The fortune teller’s kiss / Brenda Serotte. p. cm.—(American lives) isbn13: 9780803243262 (cloth: alk. paper) isbn10: 080324326x (cloth: alk. paper) isbn13:9780803243538 (paper: alk. paper) 1. Serotte, Brenda—Childhood and youth. 2. Jews— New York (State)—New York—Biography. 3. Sephardim—New York (State)—New York— Biography. 4. Poliomyelitis—Patients—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 5. Jews, Turkish— New York (State)—New York—Anecdotes. 6. Bronx (New York,n.y.)—Biography. 7. New York (n.y.)— Biography. I. Title. II. Series. f128.9.j5s434 2006 974.7'1'004924—dc22

2005014035

Set in Quadraat by Bob Reitz. Designed by A. Shahan.

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For my mother and father, ﬁghting and dancing inGan Eden.Opa!

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My îrst loyalty is not to history or bearing witness. It is tothe stories that arise out of my life.฀kazuo ishiguro

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1Turks2Fortuna3Lost4Contagious5Grace6Northern Lights7Quiche Lorraine8Celebrity

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Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Discussion Questions

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Illustrations Following page 96

1. Rockaway Beach, 1953 2. Polio Pioneers, 1954 3. Typical iron lung room, 1950s 4. Nona Behora, fortune teller, ca. 1952 5. Tante Allegre and Doris, on the Concourse 6. Lorraine, Brenda, and the hidden brace 7. Sultana and Ovadiah 8. Vic and Rosika, just wed, 1943 9. Executive secretary, Knopf Publishing 10. Turkish dancing at a bar mitzvah 11. Bellina the Belly Dancer 12. The author at seven 13. The Council: Allegre, Rosika, and Sultana 14. Bellina dances with abandon to the recordPort Said 15. Miss Rheingold Beer, 1958 16. Cousin Jacques from Port Said

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