A review by ridgewaygirl
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick

4.0

I've never read anything by Cynthia Ozick beyond a short story or two, so I thought to remedy this with this book. Set during the 1952, Foreign Bodies is the story of Bea, whose life has been on hold since her husband left her years earlier. She goes on a trip to Europe and her brother orders her to find his son and to bring him home. She fails, but is now enmeshed in the life of her brother's family. Her brother is a blow-hard who has estranged every member of his family and it's not hard to see why, but those family members aren't very nice themselves and it's hard to see why Bea is willing to involve herself in all that drama. Bea, through all the family drama, wakes up and begins to take an active role in the lives of those around her, finding that while it's difficult to change one's own life, it's relatively easy to have an impact in the lives of others.

Oddly, while I liked none of the characters and disliked several of them, and wasn't gripped by the plot, I could not stop reading this book. It's written in an old-fashioned style, which suits it's post-war setting and has a fearsome momentum that left me turning pages, uncertain of what lay around the bend.