The American Lady: The Glassblower Trilogy
One night in 1910, in the German village of Lauscha, Marie, a creative glassblower, feels as if someone has shoved a glass dome over her head. Unable to slip it off and breathe, she screams. She is awakened from the nightmare by her boyfriend’s soothing voice, his arms around her. Something is also blocking Marie’s inventiveness. She decides to re-energize herself by visiting her sister, Ruth, who had moved to New York along with her daughter, Wanda. Ruth, married to a Woolworth executive, lives a fashionable life in a high-rise, attending and arranging dinner parties, charitable events and such. She wants 18-year-old Wanda to act high-class as well. Wanda, unable to hold a steady job, is facing dilemmas of her own but is delighted to take her Aunt Marie around NYC. Marie enjoys the Greenwich Village atmosphere, where she meets an Italian nobleman, Franco. Marie inadvertently tells Wanda a family secret that upsets her, and she heads off to Lauscha to learn more about her past. Franco manages to persuade Marie to move with him to his parents’ estate in Genoa.
This second book in Petra Durst-Benning’s series about a trio of German sisters is virtually a standalone. It covers Marie’s and Wanda’s stories during 1910-1911. Since that was a relatively tranquil period in Germany, Italy and the USA, the novel is essentially a family saga of loves, marriages, ambitions and disappointments. The political unrest from Bolshevism, anti-Semitism, and other issues, which happened in the following years leading up to WWI, may well feature in the sequel. However, the strong writing and vivid descriptions of that period’s norms, dialogue and locations keep our interest alive. Readers will yearn to learn if Wanda and Marie will find love and happiness and turn the novel’s pages up to the appealing ending.
