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A review by alexandriaslibrary
The Tree and the Vine by Dola de Jong
emotional
reflective
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
Hard to get my words together for this one. I am sad at how long it took me to pick this up. Sad at how familiar this world of looming fascism feels. Sad that none of my friends have read this or even heard about this one.
Set in 1939/1940 Amsterdam, Bea and an acquaintance Erica move into together. Erica is a boyish journalist who has unstable relationships with a number of shrill women (a lesbian after my own heart). Bea is repressed, closeted, ashamed, but the connection she has with Erica is so undeniable that she cannot be apart from her.
"I could no longer live without her; with her I could have only the strange existence that her miserable childhood had predetermined for her, and in which I could only be the spectator."
Set in 1939/1940 Amsterdam, Bea and an acquaintance Erica move into together. Erica is a boyish journalist who has unstable relationships with a number of shrill women (a lesbian after my own heart). Bea is repressed, closeted, ashamed, but the connection she has with Erica is so undeniable that she cannot be apart from her.
"I could no longer live without her; with her I could have only the strange existence that her miserable childhood had predetermined for her, and in which I could only be the spectator."