Two brothers, Abe and Mort, share a two-family house.
Their wives, Helen
and Rose, are close friends until the night they both give
birth. Helen and
Abe have four boys and pray they will be blessed with a
girl. Rose and
Abe have three girls and all Mort wants is a boy to carry
on his family
name and take over his part in their family business.
While the brothers
are away, their wives give birth in their home with only a
midwife to help, during a blizzard. Their lives will never
be the same after that fateful
night. THE TWO-FAMILY HOUSE by Lynda Cohen Loigman is a
debut
novel and filled with family heartache that will keep you
flipping the pages
late into the night to find out what is going to happen
next.
The two families could not be more different. THE TWO-
FAMILY HOUSE
shows how Abe is the happy fun loving Dad, while Mort comes
across
as cold and uncaring and most of the time quite unhappy.
The relationship
between Helen and Rose is the core of this heartbreaking
story, and you
won't be able to help but feel the women's pain as you are
reading. There is
a secret between them, and while you think you might know
what it is, trust
me, you won't be able to put this wonderful story down.
I still can't believe THE TWO-FAMILY HOUSE is a debut
novel. The
characters are so real and believable; they feel as if they
are people you
know and really care about. They made me laugh and they
made me cry
and all the while I was holding my breath, afraid of what
was going to come
next. Secrets will be revealed and heartbreak comes along
with tragedy,
which had me going through so many different emotions and
feelings.
Lynda Cohen Loigman sure knows how families work, and she
was spot on
with the tug of war most of us go through with our own
families. I cannot
wait to read more by this wonderful author. I really
enjoyed THE TWO-FAMILY HOUSE
and
had a hard time putting it down. Near the end I tried to
read slower just
because I didn't want to say goodbye to THE TWO-FAMILY
HOUSE and all
the lovable people inside.
Brooklyn, 1947: in the midst of a blizzard, in a
two-family brownstone, two babies are born minutes apart
to
two women. They are sisters by marriage with an
impenetrable
bond forged before and during that dramatic night; but as
the years progress, small cracks start to appear and
their
once deep friendship begins to unravel. No one knows why,
and no one can stop it. One misguided choice; one moment
of
tragedy. Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost but
not
quite wins.
From debut novelist Lynda Cohen Loigman
comes The Two-Family House, a moving family saga
filled with heart, emotion, longing, love, and mystery.
Excerpt
She walked down the stairs of the old two-family house in
the dark, careful not to slip. The steps were steep and
uneven, hidden almost entirely beneath the snow. It had
been falling rapidly for hours and there had been too
much excitement going on inside the house for anyone to
think about shoveling steps for a departing midwife.
Perhaps if the fathers of the two babies born had been
present, they would have thought to shovel. But the storm
had prevented their return, and neither had been home.
She breathed in the cold night air, happy to be outside
at last, away from the heat and closeness of the birthing
room. How grateful she was for the sudden burst of wind
that slammed the door shut behind her, shaking her out of
her exhaustion and signaling the finality of the evening.
She loved her work and cherished the intimacy of it. But
it was not a pleasure outing.
Before today she thought she had seen every permutation
of circumstance: the girls who cried out for their own
mothers even as they became mothers themselves; the older
women who marked themselves as cursed, suddenly bursting
with joy over a healthy child come to them at last. She
thought she had heard every kind of sound a person could
make, witnessed every expression the human face could
conjure up out of pain, joy or grief. That was what she
thought before this evening.
This night was different. Never before had she seen such
longing, pain and relief braided together more tightly.
Two mothers, two babies, born only minutes apart. She
had witnessed tonight what pure woman strength could
accomplish, how the mind could control the body out of
absolute desperation.
She had watched, and she had ignored. She had taken
charge, yet she was absent. She let them believe that
her confusion was real, that she was tired. But she was
never confused. She was not too tired to comprehend
their hopes. The fragile magic of that night had not been
lost on her.
She breathed in the air again, crisp and cold, clearing
her head. It had been a good night, two healthy babies
born to healthy, capable mothers. She couldn’t ask for
more. What happened now was out of her hands. Wholly and
completely she put it out of her mind, said her goodbyes
to the house on the steps and made her way home to go to
sleep. There would be more babies tomorrow, she knew,
and the constancy of her work would keep her thoughts
from this place. She promised herself never to think of
it again.
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