Review: ‘Two-Family House’ is tale of secrets kept
Brooklyn BookBeat
It’s hard to believe “The Two-Family House” (St. Martin’s Press) is Lynda Cohen Loigman’s debut novel. A richly textured, complex, yet entirely believable story, it draws us inexorably into the lives of two brothers and their families in 1950s Brooklyn.
Mort and his brother Abe and their wives, Rose and Helen, live in a duplex. With nine children between them, they share meals, playtime, homework and baby-sitting. It would seem unlikely such proximity would allow the sharing of secrets. But they do — and that’s the novel’s pivot point.
As compelling as the story line are the characters that Loigman has drawn here. None is wholly likable nor entirely worthy of scorn. All are achingly human, tragically flawed and immediately recognizable. We watch them change and grow as the novel spans more than 20 years.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.