The Tailor’s Daughter by Lois Baer Barr; Tucson, Arizona: Water’s Edge Press, LLC; © 2023; ISBN 9781952-526176; 322 pages plus appendices; $20.
SAN DIEGO – This novel is a collection of sequential short stories about the Toplansky family, whose patriarch Shlomo immigrated in 1920 from Bialystok, Poland, to Louisville, Kentucky. He changed his first name to Sol and eked a living from his tailoring shop supplemented by singing and gambling. He served as the chazzan at the Orthodox synagogue.
Two years later, Sol was situated with his wife, Malke, who took the name Mollie; daughter Bess, the central character of the novel; son Calman (Calvin); and mother-in-law Adel, who spoke only Yiddish and was distrustful of American ways and non-Jews.
The novel follows the adventures of the family through the Depression and the onset of World War II. One suspects that novelist Lois Baer Barr might someday produce a sequel focusing on the war years and beyond.
The Tailor’s Daughter tells of the delight the Toplansky children felt on their first riverboat ride, and their misadventures at an amusement park.
Particularly vivid is the novel’s description of Kentucky at the time of the Great Flood of 1937, when raging Ohio River waters caused people to move to the top floors of their dwellings, or failing that, to sit on their roofs awaiting rescue.
We follow Bess as she goes through school, enters statewide piano competitions, excels in an anatomy class, and grows into adulthood. We observe the sympathetic relationships among Jewish immigrants and African Americans in a society where both were perceived as a lower class subject to a variety of social restrictions.
The Toplansky family, under financial pressure, would stay for an extended period with cousins in neighboring Indiana, before returning to Kentucky. The novel delves into the jealousy with which cousin Sara regards Bess. It also examines the situation of gay men and the general prejudice against German-speaking families.
It is easy for readers to relate to the characters, who are finely drawn.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.