In Seventh Heaven
Alice Hoffman expertly weaves together the stories of multiple
characters to create a realistic portrait of suburbia as the conforming
1950s gave way to the restive 1960s.
A single mother and her two sons move into a six-year-old Long Island
neighborhood where all the houses are identical. Without intending to,
Nora Silk stirs up the carefully regulated lives on Hemlock Street just
because of who she is — divorced, fashionable, a woman who works
because she has to, an irregular housekeeper and parent. At first Nora
is gossiped about and ostracized, and her awkward eight-year-old son,
Billy, is bullied. As time goes on, however, Nora’s neighbors, both the
parents and the children, feel discontented. A husband can’t escape his
sexual fantasies, teenage boys assault a high school classmate, a
mother abandons her family, another marriage breaks apart. Just as
Nora’s presence had disturbed the neighborhood, she becomes an
instrument of healing for some. The residents of Hemlock Street do not
return to the constricted facade of the past but accept lives that are
both imperfect and more honest.
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