The marriage of opposites : a novel

by Hoffman, Alice,

Format: Print Book 2015
Availability: Available at 37 Libraries 38 of 40 copies
Available (38)
Location Collection Call #
ACLA Mobile Library Services Fiction Collection F HOFF
Location  ACLA Mobile Library Services
 
Collection  Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  F HOFF
 
 
Andrew Bayne Memorial Library Closed Stacks (Ask at Desk) Fic Hoff
Location  Andrew Bayne Memorial Library
 
Collection  Closed Stacks (Ask at Desk)
 
Call Number  Fic Hoff
 
 
Bethel Park Public Library Fiction FIC HOFFMAN Alice
Location  Bethel Park Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOFFMAN Alice
 
 
Brentwood Library Fiction FICTION Hoffman
Location  Brentwood Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
C.C. Mellor Memorial Library Fiction FIC Hof
Location  C.C. Mellor Memorial Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC Hof
 
 
CLP - Allegheny Fiction FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - Allegheny
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
CLP - Carrick Fiction Collection FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - Carrick
 
Collection  Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
CLP - East Liberty Fiction Collection FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - East Liberty
 
Collection  Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
CLP - Main Library First Floor - Fiction Stacks FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  First Floor - Fiction Stacks
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
CLP - Main Library First Floor - Fiction Stacks FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  First Floor - Fiction Stacks
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
CLP - Sheraden Fiction Collection FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - Sheraden
 
Collection  Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
CLP - West End Fiction Collection FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - West End
 
Collection  Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
CLP - Woods Run Fiction Collection FICTION Hoffman
Location  CLP - Woods Run
 
Collection  Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  FICTION Hoffman
 
 
Carnegie Library of Homestead Fiction FIC Hoff
Location  Carnegie Library of Homestead
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC Hoff
 
 
Clairton Public Library Fiction F HOFF
Location  Clairton Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F HOFF
 
 
Community Library of Allegheny Valley - Harrison Fiction FIC HOFFMAN
Location  Community Library of Allegheny Valley - Harrison
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOFFMAN
 
 
Community Library of Castle Shannon Fiction Fic Hoffman
Location  Community Library of Castle Shannon
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  Fic Hoffman
 
 
Cooper-Siegel Community Library Fiction FIC HOF
Location  Cooper-Siegel Community Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOF
 
 
Cooper-Siegel Community Library - Sharpsburg Historical Fiction HIF FIC HOF
Location  Cooper-Siegel Community Library - Sharpsburg
 
Collection  Historical Fiction
 
Call Number  HIF FIC HOF
 
 
Dormont Public Library Fiction F HOFF
Location  Dormont Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F HOFF
 
 
Green Tree Public Library Adult Fiction F HOF
Location  Green Tree Public Library
 
Collection  Adult Fiction
 
Call Number  F HOF
 
 
Hampton Community Library Fiction F HOFFMAN
Location  Hampton Community Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F HOFFMAN
 
 
Monroeville Public Library Fiction HOFFMAN Alice
Location  Monroeville Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  HOFFMAN Alice
 
 
Moon Township Public Library Fiction F HOFFMAN Alice
Location  Moon Township Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F HOFFMAN Alice
 
 
Northern Tier Regional Library Fiction FIC HOFFM
Location  Northern Tier Regional Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOFFM
 
 
Northland Public Library Fiction FIC HOFFMAN
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOFFMAN
 
 
Oakmont Carnegie Library Fiction HO
Location  Oakmont Carnegie Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  HO
 
 
Penn Hills Library Fiction HOFFMAN
Location  Penn Hills Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  HOFFMAN
 
 
Pleasant Hills Public Library Adult Fiction Fic Hoffman
Location  Pleasant Hills Public Library
 
Collection  Adult Fiction
 
Call Number  Fic Hoffman
 
 
Robinson Library Fiction FIC HOFFMAN
Location  Robinson Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOFFMAN
 
 
Sewickley Public Library Fiction F HOF
Location  Sewickley Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F HOF
 
 
Shaler North Hills Library Fiction HOFFMAN
Location  Shaler North Hills Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  HOFFMAN
 
 
South Fayette Township Library Fiction FIC HOF
Location  South Fayette Township Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOF
 
 
South Park Library Fiction F HOFFMAN ALICE
Location  South Park Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F HOFFMAN ALICE
 
 
Springdale Free Public Library Fiction AF HOFF
Location  Springdale Free Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  AF HOFF
 
 
Upper St. Clair Township Library Literary Fiction LITERARY HOFFMAN Alice
Location  Upper St. Clair Township Library
 
Collection  Literary Fiction
 
Call Number  LITERARY HOFFMAN Alice
 
 
Wilkinsburg Public Library Fiction FIC HOF
Location  Wilkinsburg Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOF
 
 
Wilkinsburg Public Library - Eastridge Fiction FIC HOF
Location  Wilkinsburg Public Library - Eastridge
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC HOF
 
 
 
Unavailable (2)
Location Collection Status
Bridgeville Public Library Fiction CHECKED OUT
Location  Bridgeville Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Status  CHECKED OUT
 
 
CLP - Beechview Fiction CHECKED OUT
Location  CLP - Beechview
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Status  CHECKED OUT
 
 
Summary
"[A] luminous, Marquez-esque tale." - O, The Oprah Magazine

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things : a forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St. Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro-the Father of Impressionism.

Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. Rachel's mother, a pillar of their small refugee community of Jews who escaped the Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for being a difficult girl who refuses to live by the rules. Growing up, Rachel's salvation is their maid Adelle's belief in her strengths, and her deep, life-long friendship with Jestine, Adelle's daughter. But Rachel's life is not her own. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father's business. When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Frédérick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family, including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France.

Building on the triumphs of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things , set in a world of almost unimaginable beauty, The Marriage of Opposites showcases the beloved, bestselling Alice Hoffman at the height of her considerable powers. Once forgotten to history, the marriage of Rachel and Frédérick is a story that is as unforgettable as it is remarkable.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "*Starred Review* Defiance and Wonder It may seem as though Hoffman, best-selling author of more than 30 books for adults and teens, magics spellbinding fiction out of thin air, but in fact, she often improvises on historical events and figures. In The Museum of Extraordinary Things (2014), she fictionalizes New York City's catastrophic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and its ripple effect on an Orthodox Jewish family. In The Dovekeepers (2011), she presents an unusual perspective on the 70 CE siege of Masada, where 900 Jews held off Roman soldiers. Now, in The Marriage of Opposites, she offers a rare look at nineteenth-century Jewish life in the Caribbean and discloses the dramatic family history of a seminal French painter. The novel begins in 1807 on the island of St. Thomas, a glorious natural paradise shadowed by the horrors of slavery, which, though outlawed, persists amid virulent racism. The Jewish community, made up of refugees from anti-Semitic atrocities in Europe, seeks safety in strict religious conformity. And no woman, no matter her background, has any rights, not even to her own children. Young, headstrong, yet dreamy Rachel Pomié embodies two evocative traits shared by many of Hoffman's irresistible women characters. She is awestruck by nature, reveling in and revering the island's vital, lush beauty, and she is mystically attuned to mysterious forces, especially the spirits of the dead. She is also a true original. Because her Jewish family has roots in France, that country becomes her imagination's polestar as she memorizes maps of Paris and reads voraciously in her father's extensive library. Ardently independent and sharp-tongued, she refuses to abide by racial or gender restrictions, cleaving to her best friend, Jestine, the daughter of their African cook, and turning away all suitors until her family's finances plunge, and her panicked father arranges her marriage to Isaac, a much older widower with three young children. Rachel doesn't love her husband, but she adores his children, and she and Isaac have four more together. Then he dies, leaving Rachel without a home or livelihood. She is perfectly capable of running their shop, but legally, she must defer to her husband's family, waiting for a representative to arrive from Paris to take charge of her and her children's futures. Enter handsome, good-hearted, diligent 22-year-old Frédéric, who is expecting to meet an old lady, his aunt, technically, by marriage. Instead he is lightning-struck by voluptuous, tough, and impertinent 29-year-old Rachel. The scorching is mutual, scandalous, and condemned as incestuous and apostate by their Jewish neighbors. Hoffman discerns a mythic dimension in the intensity of their passion, the anguish of their ostracism, and their determination to secure permission to marry as their children, including their highly unusual third son, Camille, are born. Rachel could easily have remained the focus of this beguiling novel, but as Hoffman begins to write from the point of view of the color-bedazzled, sly, rebellious, and charming boy who will become the renowned painter Camille Pissarro, a leader and mentor among the impressionists, we see the world afresh as a perpetual dance of radiance and darkness, form and space. Of course, Hoffman herself is an artist, rendering each setting with sumptuous and incandescent detail and capturing every shade and hue of suffering and bliss. As witty as she is lyrical, she writes ricocheting dialogue. This rhapsodic blend of keenly observed historical elements and vibrantly fabulistic invention generates an entrancing saga of sacrifice, forbidden loves, betrayals, and family tragedies endured in a world fractured by religion, class, and race and redeemed by art and by love. Hoffman is at her resplendent best in this trenchant and revelatory tale of a heroic woman and her world-altering artist son. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Given the resounding success of her previous two novels, Hoffman's latest, with zealous publisher support, will lure her fans and readers curious about the lives of artists.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Hoffman (The Museum of Extraordinary Things) finds inspiration for her particular brand of magical realism in the Caribbean island of St. Thomas and the personal history of a nonfictional woman named Rachel Pomié, who lived on the colony in the 19th century. Rachel begins the story as the headstrong daughter of a French merchant, whose Jewish ancestors came to the New World in pursuit of religious freedom and found refuge under the protection of the King of Denmark, a champion of civil rights who also outlawed slavery on the island. Rachel grows up with her best friend Jestine, the beautiful daughter of her family's servant, Adelle, but upon adulthood, their paths separate. Rachel, caught up in the expectations set for her as a member of the small community, marries Isaac Petit, a widower nearly 30 years her senior with three small children, in order to help her father's business interests. She puts away her dreams of moving to Paris and accepts the role of dutiful wife, producing more children and becoming distant from Jestine, who faces her own challenges finding her place in society. When Rachel's husband dies and his nephew arrives to oversee the family business, Rachel is swept into an encompassing love that violates the community's moral code and isolates her family-but produces a son, Camille, whose peculiar way of seeing foretells his role as a leader of French Impressionism. Hoffman's subject matter and her evocative writing style are a wonderful fit for this moving story, which illuminates a historical period and women whose lives were colored by hardships, upheavals, and the subjugation of personal desires. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Pissarro, Camille, -- 1830-1903 -- Family -- Fiction.
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction.
Saint Thomas (United States Virgin Islands : Island) -- Fiction.
Romance fiction.
Historical fiction.
Publisher New York :Simon & Schuster,2015
Edition First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
Language English
Description 369 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography Notes Includes bibliographical references (page 369).
ISBN 9781451693591
1451693591
Other Classic View