The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold
University of Alabama Press, Fiction Collective 2
The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold is a lavishly poetic novel that draws upon the motifs of traditional German, Russian and Yiddish folklore and fairy stories to recount the visionary obsessions of a passionate young woman. The narrative moves freely through time and space, uniting Ketzia Gold's early childhood with her sexual awakenings, creating a dreamscape of haunting vividness. Marked by a logical illogic and disarmingly sane madness, this haunting and innovative fable creates an emotional landscape that's as impossible to escape as it is for young Ketzia to inhabit. Kate Bernheimer interweaves hypnotic imagery and everyday life, moving back and forth through time, piecing together the fragments of memory and imagination with an obsessive lyricism that recalls the poetic fictions of Carol Maso. Bernheimer's story is a rich tapestry, patterned with childhood longings and the luxuriant complexity of womanhood.
The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold [is] a truly original approach to the Bildungsroman, in which Kate Bernheimer has constructed a coherent and compelling narrative by cobbling together the plot lines of a wide variety of fairy tales, and my admiration for her talent as a writer, and the dazzling use to which she puts it, is of the highest order.'—Kathryn Davis
Kate Bernheimer's The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold is a seductive work of intelligence and charm.' —Carole Maso
Original and beautifully written. . . . Kate Bernheimer is an exceptional writer of fiction.' —Fanny Howe
Kate Bernheimer attended Wesleyan University and received her M.F.A. from the University of Arizona. She has taught in the Harvard Summer Writing Program and has been the George Bennett Fellow in Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. The editor of the book Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales (Doubleday), she teaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold is Bernheimer's first novel.
