The Daughters

The Daughters by Adrienne Celt
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a story of four women. It starts with Greta, the legendary matriarch, who may have made a deal with the devil to deliver a daughter. Next came Ada, who immigrated to America from Poland, pregnant with her daughter Sara, and who raises Sara's daughter Lulu to be a great opera singer. Ada has molded Lulu since she was in the womb to be an opera diva, and that is exactly what she is. She is selfish and self-absorbed and not really likeable at all. She believes her daughter will fulfill the curse and take away her voice and is somehow responsible for Ada's death on the day she was born. All of the daughters perhaps are cursed, though not in the way Lulu thinks. They are all rather self-involved and rather poor mothers. Even hard-working Ada turns a blind eye to her own daughter's need for reassurance and guidance and , instead focuses all her energy on Lulu's singing career. What I did like and wished there was more of was the beautiful tales of Greta, told in lyrical mythology with magic and mystery. If there were more Greta stories and less Lulu, this would have been a five-star book.

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But I lay still, listening. And hoping: don’t let her really be awake. As though being unaware of a storm could save you from it.

 I just happen to know that sometimes the world gives a little twist and everything changes. A shout percussing across the mountain stones until one falls down and the rest tumble after. There is danger in small things.

 Wishes are dangerous things, you see. Start asking the sky to grant you requests and you better prepare for some fallout, red rain.

 Sitting in the Civic theater is like sitting in a mouth full of gold teeth, red velvet tongues periodically unfurling into aisles. Though the theater was not bright, an occasional patch of warm light glimmered off the embellishments on the walls and hung around me like hot breath. I felt the theater’s mouth yawning out from the stage and leaned into it. I wanted to throw myself down the room’s golden throat.