In the Shadow of the Greenbrier
In her first novel, journalist Emily Matchar gives us no fewer than four timelines, each focusing on a member of the Zelner family: Sol, who leaves Lithuania in 1909 to avoid the fate of Jews drafted into the czarist army and finally settles in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, where he opens a general store; his discontented Polish daughter-in-law, Sylvia, who in 1942 is furious to learn that the federal government is billeting captive Axis diplomats at the posh Greenbrier Resort; Sylvia’s daughter Doree, whose teenage life in 1958 is upended when her brilliant but socially inept younger brother begins obsessing about a construction project at the resort; and Doree’s son Jordan, a rookie reporter at the Washington Post who in 1992 determines to follow up an anonymous lead involving the Greenbrier.
Matchar assigned herself a formidable task, and she handles it beautifully. Her main characters, as well as the large supporting cast, are drawn well; even the least sympathetic protagonist, Sylvia, has her redeeming qualities. The mysteries about the resort and about their own family that confront Doree and Jordan keep the reader in suspense, and the actual historical events involving the Greenbrier that form the backdrop of the novel mesh smoothly with the stories of the fictional Zelner family. Equally important, In the Shadow of the Greenbrier raises questions—about assimilation, family ties, and Jewishness in America, among others—that will keep this book in a reader’s mind long after the last page is finished. I recommend it highly.
