In trying to discover what life might have offered if their father had not had to flee from Nazi Austria, an American family finds out unexpected secrets about itself. A brilliant addition to EnvelopeBooks' range of new fiction. It is the summer of 1960. The social conservatism of Dwight Eisenhower is about to give way to the progressive ambitions of John F. Kennedy. And three brothers, brought up in a suburb community in upstate New York, are travelling across the Atlantic to Austria, which only 15 years earlier had been part of the German Reich, to spend part of the summer with one of their grandfathers, a survivor of the war years. Michael Ladner's new novel is a gentle but closely observed exploration of the interweaving of two cultural landscapes populated by different generations of the same family. The novel tracks the various experiences of childhood discontent, adolescent ambition, marital disharmony, personal endurance, and the bitterness of persecution, watching as the characters are forced to confront their most secret longings and origins, with results both comic and tragic. And, at the centre of the novel, is the family nanny, Mrs. Ruby Woodbine, a widow from the South whose blend of folk wisdom and country prejudices provides an ironic counterpoint to the family's misadventures, triumphs and disasters. A quietly satirical piece of writing and a brilliant addition to EnvelopeBooks' range of new literary fiction. AUTHOR: Michael Ladner was born in Princeton, NJ, and is said to have been patted on the head by Albert Einstein as a baby. Thus encouraged he went on to take a BA from Harvard, an MA from New York University, and a PhD in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University, since when he has completed further studies at the San Francisco Art Institute and School of Visual Arts. He has taught American and European History, Art History, Psychology and English, and lived mostly in Brooklyn and Manhattan. In 2006, he and his wife moved to California. Mrs Woodbine's Prejudices is his third novel.
