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Summary
Summary
With a riotous energy that recalls the works of John Irving and Anne Tyler, Broken for You is a debut novel of infinite charm and tremendous heart that explores the risks and rewards of human connection, and the hidden strength behind things that only seem fragile.When we meet septuagenarian Margaret Hughes, she is living alone in a mansion in Seattle with only a massive collection of valuable antiques for company. Enter Wanda Schultz, a young woman with a broken heart who has come west to search for her wayward boyfriend. Both women are guarding dark secrets and have spent many years building up protective armor against the outside world. But as the two begin their tentative dance of friendship, the armor begins to fall away and Margaret opens her house to Wanda. Along the way, a famous mosaic artist is born, a Holocaust survivor is reunited with her long-lost tea set, and a sad-eyed drifter finds his long-lost daughter.Funny, heartbreaking, and alive with a potpourri of eccentric and irresistible characters, Broken for You is a testament to the saving graces of surrogate families, and shows how far the tiniest repair jobs can go in righting the world's wrongs.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
"The dead, Margaret thought. They can be so loud." So muses the protagonist of this dreamy, powerful tale of familial warring, secrets and redemption. When elderly Margaret Hughes discovers that she has a malignant brain tumor, she refuses treatment and decides to take a nice young tenant into her huge, lonely Seattle mansion for company. What she gets is Wanda Schultz, a tough-as-nails stage manager who is secretly seeking the man who left her and prone to inexplicable weeping breakdowns. Wanda, ignorant of Margaret's illness, is intrigued by the museum-like house and its eccentric owner-so when Margaret unexpectedly invites her to a drink-champagne-and-break-the-priceless-antique-china party for two, she's delighted. But a dark history lurks; the houseful of gorgeous antique porcelain comes from Margaret's father's WWII pilfering of European Jewish homes. Meanwhile, Wanda's father, who deserted her years ago, is on the road trying to heal, and Margaret's mother's ghost is haunting the Seattle mansion, lounging about in expensive peignoirs and criticizing her only daughter. Wrestling to keep the dead and the ghosts of their pasts at bay, the two women slowly build an extraordinary friendship, and when Wanda discovers a talent for mosaics, the past begins to quiet. Though it takes a while to get started, this haunting and memorable debut is reminiscent of early Atwood, peopled by lovably imperfect and eccentric characters. Agent, Simon Lipskar at Writer's House. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Well-crafted plotting and crackling wit make this debut novel by Seattle author Kallos a delight to read and a memory to savor. The compelling story highlights the losses and disjointedness of life and the many paths back to healing for those who seek the way. Margaret Hughes lives alone in a Seattle mansion, divorced from her husband after the death of their son. She talks to her father's priceless antique porcelain collection and spends her days dusting. Wanda Schultz, abandoned as a child by her parents, cannot accept the rejection of her lover, Peter, whose solitary postcard brings her across the country in search of him. When cancer sends Margaret a wake-up call, she opens her home and her heart: first to Wanda and then to a flood of other new family members as she learns to interact with people and eventually to atone for a past crime she only gradually understands. But the clever plot and luminous characters are not all that place this novel at the head of the class. Ghostly characters only Margaret sees and heaps of broken porcelain provide powerful metaphors for the sins of the past and the need for personal sacrifice. Book groups will enjoy discussing the layers of meaning, the stylistic nuances, and the powerful message of hope secreted in these pages. --Jennifer Baker Copyright 2004 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Theater veteran Kallos debuts with a dazzling mosaic of intersecting lives and fates. Lured by an unsigned postcard, possibly from her ex-lover, freewheeling Wanda Schultz travels cross-country to Seattle. A stage manager, she's in demand anywhere there's a show looking for a fiercely organized, sturdy person. Her quest parallels her long lost father's: in 1969, he left six-year-old Wanda with his sister's large family to set off in search of his runaway wife. Elsewhere in Seattle, septuagenarian Margaret Hughes has been diagnosed with a brain "astrocytoma"--a "star" tumor. She has occupied a cavernous hilltop mansion since childhood, when her wealthy father's hobby was dealing antiques and her mother's was genteel insanity. By 1946, her mother was the châtelaine and "sacristan" of vast rooms of fine china and porcelain that her father fenced from Nazis, who stole from the apartments of deported Jews. Except for a brief marriage that ended after her young son was killed in a car crash, Margaret has lived in seclusion all these years, dusting tchotchkes her sole preoccupation. Determined to change her habits after the diagnosis, she advertises for a boarder. Enter Wanda. Both women, shattered by abandonment and loss, reform themselves by methodically destroying the artifacts looted from others' lives. The smashing and cracking symbolism might be too pervasive for those who hate to see the lovable Wanda broken in service to a motif. But it's a very skillfully integrated conceit. After Wanda recovers from multiple fractures (she's hit by a car while running after her chimera of abandoning males), she becomes a renowned mosaic artist, creating giant installations from "pique-assiette" chards of the Hughes collection. A subplot involving bowling, the lost father, and a Holocaust survivor who has a missing piece from Margaret's hoard rounds out this multilayered rhapsody. Kallos has a rare, deft way with whimsy, dream sequences and hallucinations. Comparisons to John Irving and Tennessee Williams would not be amiss in this show-stopping debut. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Seventy-five-year-old Margaret Hughes lives alone in a mansion filled with valuable antiques, intrusive memories of her dead mother and young son, and a newly diagnosed brain tumor. Determined to change her staid, lonely life, she places an ad soliciting boarders and attracts Wanda Schultz, a young theatrical stage manager who has come to Seattle on a desperate mission to find the oafish boyfriend who left her. Both women have broken hearts, spirits, and bodies, but this is ultimately a work of repair and redemption. Margaret and Wanda not only set out to banish the ill-gotten antiques and their painful pasts but also to build relationships with each other and with Margaret's other boarders--a registered nurse, a gay chef from Alabama, a yoga instructor/hotel valet boyfriend for Margaret, and a cowboyish technical assistant trying to win Wanda's fragile heart. Actress, teacher, and first-time novelist Kallos has given us a compelling, richly layered story reminiscent of works by John Irving and Anne Tyler in its bittersweet humor and well-drawn characters; Carol Shields also comes to mind for the sharp attention to domestic detail and insight into the tenuous relationships of contemporary life. Fans of character-driven novels should be able to forgive any implausible plot developments. Recommended for all fiction collections.--Jenn B. Stidham, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
