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    The First Desire
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    The First Desire
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    The First Desire
    Audiobook12 hours

    The First Desire

    Written by Nancy Reisman

    Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    1929. Buffalo, New York. A beautiful July day, the kind one waits for through the long, cold winters. Sadie Feldstein, née Cohen, looks out her window at the unexpected sight of her brother, Irving. His news is even more unexpected, and unsettling: their elder sister, Goldie, has vanished without a trace.

    With Goldie's disappearance as the catalyst, The First Desire takes us deep into the life of the Cohen
    family and an American city, from the Great Depression to the years immediately following World War II. The story of the Cohens is seamlessly told from the various perspectives of siblings Sadie, Jo, Goldie, and Irving-each of whose worlds is upended over the course of the novel, the smooth veneer of their lives giving way to the vulnerabilities and secrets they've managed to keep hidden-and through the eyes of Lillian, the beautiful woman their father, Abe, took as a lover as his wife was dying. But while Abe's affair with Lillian stuns his children, they are even more shocked by his cold anger in the wake of Goldie's disappearance.

    The First Desire is a book of great emotional power that brings to life the weave of love, grief, tradition, and desire that binds a family together, even through the tumultuous times that threaten to tear it apart.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 14, 2004
    ISBN9780739317648
    Unavailable
    The First Desire

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    Reviews for The First Desire

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Alternating characters in a family in Buffalo in the 1920s-1940s; jumping forward in time. Slow-paced, good writing and character development; just a tiny bit slow.
    • 4/5
      s it just me, or is it the fact that one of the sisters is named Jo, that this novel reminded me a bit of and updated, Jewish Little Women?Very good handling of the joys and stresses of siblings and family, the need to disappear from the expectations of daily life, and the way that death of a loved one changes everything.