Synopses & Reviews
Floating in My Mother's Palm is the compelling and mystical story of Hanna Malter, a young girl growing up in 1950's Burgdorf, the small German town Ursula Hegi so brilliantly brought to life in her bestselling novel Stones from the River. Hanna's courageous voice evokes her unconventional mother, who swims during thunderstorms; the illegitimate son of an American GI, who learns from Hanna about his father; and the librarian, Trudi Montag, who lets Hanna see her hometown from a dwarf's extraordinary point of view. Although Ursula Hegi wrote Floating in My Mother's Palm first, it can be read as a sequel to Stones from the River.
Review
"Ursula Heggi recreates childhood and history in this poised and lyrical book." Hilma Wolitzer
Review
"If Stravinsky were a writer, I imagine he would have written a book such as this, for Ursula Heggi gathers all the tonal moods and emotional power to her work that we would expect of music that moves us to appreciate our hearts and souls and their troubling complexity." Bob Shacochis
Review
"A treasure of a book. At once amazingly delicate and eerily powerful, it envelopes the reader in the raw, painful, and poignant life of a small town in post-war Germany benumbed, bewildered, and, sadly, not much the wiser. Ursula Heggi is a beautiful writer with much truth to tell." Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Review
"A graceful, lyrical, heartbreaking book that offers many pleasures, not the least of which is the opportunity to read a very talented author writing at the top of her form, telling stories she seems born to tell in a voice that is completely her own. Marvelous." Alice McDermott
Review
"Sometimes charming, sometimes deeply moving...Hannah Malter, an adolescent trying to make sense of the disturbing world around her, emerges as a strong and authentic presence." J. M. Coetzee
Review
"[Hegi] has created an absolutely correct postwar Germany with all its forbidden questions and mysterious behavior, all its squalor, loss and longing." Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
Floating in My Mother's Palm is the compelling and mystical story of Hanna Malter, a young girl growing up in 1950's Burgdorf, the small German town Ursula Hegi so brilliantly brought to life in her bestselling novel Stones from the River. Hanna's courageous voice evokes her unconventional mother, who swims during thunderstorms; the illegitimate son of an American GI, who learns from Hanna about his father; and the librarian, Trudi Montag, who lets Hanna see her hometown from a dwarf's extraordinary point of view. Although Ursula Hegi wrote Floating in My Mother's Palm first, it can be read as a sequel to Stones from the River.
About the Author
Ursula Hegi is the author of The Worst Thing I've Done, Sacred Time, Hotel of the Saints, The Vision of Emma Blau, Tearing the Silence, Salt Dancers, Stones from the River, Floating in My Mother's Palm, Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories, Intrusions, and Trudi & Pia. She teaches writing at Stonybrook's Southhampton Campus and she is the recipient of more than thirty grants and awards.