A Reunion of Ghosts

Starred review from January 19, 2015
Mitchell’s triumphant second novel (The Last Day of the War) explores love, identity, and the burdens of history in coruscating, darkly comic prose. As the 20th century closes, Lady, Delph, and Vee Alter decide to kill themselves. The decision is not surprising; the middle-aged sisters embrace the chart of previous family suicides that hangs in their New York apartment as a source of “reassuring inevitability.” Departing from Alter tradition, however, they decide to leave a suicide note, intertwining their own narratives into their family’s complex history. At the heart of it is German Jew turned Lutheran Lenz Alter, who invented the chemical process that created the chlorine gas used in WWI and a predecessor to Zyklon B, used in Nazi death camps. His culpability seemed to poison the generations, as Lenz; his wife, Iris; their son, Richard; and Richard’s three daughters (one of whom is the mother of Lady, Delph, and Vee) all died by their own hands. Or so the sisters think, until a surprising visitation suggests that the family curse is not as defining as it seems. Moving nimbly through time and balancing her weightier themes with the sharply funny, fiercely unsentimental perspectives of her three protagonists—each distinct, yet also, as their name suggests, at “different stages of a single life”—Mitchell’s fictional suicide note is poignant and pulsing with life force. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME Entertainment.

October 15, 2014

In 1999, the three Alter sisters plan suicide. So have preceding family members, starting with their great-grandmother, the wife of a Jewish Nobel Prize-winning chemist who developed the first poison gas used in World War I and subsequently in Third Reich gas chambers. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2015

Meet the rather sad small sorority of Lady, Vee, and Delph Alter, sisters who have given themselves the "deadline" of late December 1999 to commit suicide. Their reasons are based mostly on that the Alters have miserable luck, stretching back to their great-grandfather, whose brilliant scientific legacy has clouded and haunted their lives. Lady, enamored with alcohol and television, has attempted suicide previously; Vee has suffered many losses owing to cancer, which has visited once again. Sheltered spinster Delph has lived a life of few dreams. And so the Alter curse must be broken, thus the siblings gather in their ancestral Upper West Side apartment. Mitchell (The Last Day of the War) presents the sisters sympathetically in this clever, modern tale that somehow also hearkens back to Albert Einstein, Walt Whitman, and a host of unusual, lively memorable characters. Following the novel's conclusion, the author's note reveals fascinating historical information. VERDICT While the dark theme may not appeal to some readers, this serious study of a very odd family has its darkly humorous side. [See Prepub Alert, 10/15/14.]--Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.