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Author: Deborah Gaal
In The Dream Stitcher, Deborah Gaal stretches the limits of our imagination when she recounts the story of Goldye Finkelstein who possessed the power to sew dreams into reality. Goldye is also the reincarnation of Queen Mathilda of Flanders who was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror who lived in the eleventh century.
Author: Deborah Gaal
In The Dream Stitcher,
Deborah Gaal stretches the limits of our imagination when she
recounts the story of Goldye Finkelstein who possessed the power to
sew dreams into reality. Goldye is also the reincarnation of Queen
Mathilda of Flanders who was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy
by marriage to William the Conqueror who lived in the eleventh
century. According to French legend, Queen Mathilda commissioned and
created the famous tapestry, La Tapisserie de Bayeux (The Bayeux
Tapestry) which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest
of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy, and Harold, Earl of
Wessex, later King of England, and culminating in the Battle of
Hastings. It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few
years after the battle and recounts the story of the conquering
Normans.
As the story unfolds, we learn that Queen Mathilda
was quite adept at sewing and at directing others to fashion her
creations into thread. In 1923 the Queen decided that she must come
back to life as the soon to be born daughter of a young talented
Polish seamstress, Alenka Kaminski. Unfortunately, both mother and
child die in childbirth and Mathilda, who longs to inhabit the earth
once again, enters the body of another baby girl born to a Jewish
woman who is named Goldye. Thus begins Gaal's yarn.
Gaal's
uses two time frames and places, California in 2008 and Poland
during World War ll at the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In Poland,
we read about Goldye Finkelstein growing up and becoming an
apprentice to a kind Polish widower, Jan Kaminski (Alenka's husband),
owner of Kaminski's Fine Fabrics. Jan hires her and teaches her to
embroider magical, beautiful dream designs on wedding dresses for his
well-off Polish customers. Goldye becomes very much in demand as the
dreams she sews are directed by her imaginary friend,
Mathilda, who, from time-to-time, she calls upon to help her in her work.
Goldye also imagines where all the people of Warsaw are sewing a
collective dream into reality, where Jews and Poles alike could
imagine hope, sew it and make it come true.
Another
character, Lev Berlinski enters the story, whose mother was Jewish
and his father, Catholic. He is a member of both the Polish
Liberation as well as the Jewish Fighting organization and is one of
the fighters which planned The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Lev and Goldye
fall in love and Lev convinces Goldye to use her artistic skills to
aid the liberation cause. This leads to her sewing a symbol, a
hummingbird with a nest of eggs and a nest of candy. It was a code;
the hummingbird meant urgency and the eggs were grenades. When the
Poles and Jews saw the symbols, energy emerged. They knew they must
raise money for arms and the people rushed to give money to the Jews
for the uprising as well as for the Polish revolt against the
Nazis.
As the yarn shifts to California, we read about Maude
Wasserman, her daughter Rosie and Maude's mother, Bea, who lives in
her own world with Alzheimer. Maud knows very little about her
ancestors and has no idea who was her father.
Astonishingly, one
day Maude discovers a replica of the Tapisserie de Bayeux which was
stitched by her mother Bea, who, incidentally never sewed in her
life.
It is difficult to convey the full flavor of this great
feast of a novel which is an intriguing blend of thriller, history,
love, war, magic, deception, and tragedy all wrapped together in a
neat package with an unexpected ending. What gives its pleasures is
the author's skillful narrative pacing and the tight lacing of the
book's surprises. And her storytelling gifts are very much confirmed
thanks to expertly voiced narration and a masterly evocation of time
as well as place which keeps one reading as she imaginatively expands
on a variety of themes like a jazz soloist.
It should be
mentioned, as we are informed in the novel's bibliography, that in
addition to some of the history of The Bayeux Tapestry, this work of
fiction was inspired by the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the main
characters are an homage to the brave freedom fighters in this
battle, whose stories deserved to be remembered.