Girl Unwrapped

by Gabriella Goliger

Overview

Girl Unwrapped is a girl's coming-of-age story set in 1960s Montreal about the burdens and blessings of history, the divided self, and the quest to be whole. Toni Goldblatt's awakening to taboo desire conflicts with her Holocaust-scarred parents' expectations. Yearning to reinvent herself, she flees to Israel in the wake of the 1967 war, but the Zionist dream doesn't save her; only on her return, when she discovers kindred spirits in the underground lesbian bar scene, does Toni begin to find her own path. Girl Unwrapped is a novel about love, isolation, and the search for personal truth despite the stranglehold of family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781551523750
Publisher:	Arsenal Pulp Press, Limited
Publication date:	04/05/2011
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gabriella Goliger: Gabriella Goliger’s first book, Song of Ascent, won the Upper Canada Writer’s Craft Award; she is also the winner of the Journey Prize for Short Fiction. Her work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. She has been involved with the Canadian Jewish peace movement for twenty-five years.

Editorial Reviews

"A complex coming-of-age story about an only child of Holocaust survivors whose keen sense of outsiderness and otherness is intensified by her struggle with coming out as a lesbian ... Ambitious in scope, at times poetic with strong imagery, this is a literary work that ultimately resonates with hope." —Kirkus Reviews

"The tender closing of Toni's painful odyssey is filled with the blessings that come with no longer having to hide the truth. Goliger's symbolic transliteration of Lisa's Sabbath chant, 'Chew's life,' appears to have worked its magic." —The Globe and Mail

"Goliger's precise writing shows the hallmarks of a seasoned professional who knows exactly how to engage her reader: thoughtful prose, vibrant imagery, and compelling characters. Girl Unwrapped is a universally approachable story of self-discovery, told by a skillful and poised writer." —Quill and Quire

From the Publisher

A complex coming-of-age story about an only child of Holocaust survivors whose keen sense of outsiderness and otherness is intensified by her struggle with coming out as a lesbian.

This debut novel is set largely in Montreal between 1959 and 1970. Goliger (Song of Ascent, 2003) creatively structures the narrative into five parts to correspond with important and often painful passages in Toni Goldblatt's life. "The Mountain" introduces Toni at eight years old, a tomboy who regards dresses as "a frilly prison," loves that "their street hugs the wild side of Mount Royal" and can't possibly live up to "be the miracle child her mother insists God delivered at Toni's birth." Conflicts abound. Her mother Lisa, originally from the Bohemian town of Karlsbad, sews alterations at Shmelzer's and fiercely wants a better, bigger life for her family. The author effectively weaves strands of residual Holocaust fears with Toni's own confusing secrets regarding her emerging sexuality. At 15, she's sent to Camp Tikvah, a Jewish camp in the Laurentians, where she feels like "loose debris," even more of an outcast than at school, and falls in love with the "sassy" (and straight) song instructor Janet. Swept up by the excitement of the Six Day War, Toni, now 18, embarks for Jerusalem; she returns to Montreal when her beloved book-rescuing father dies. The pace picks up when Toni discovers Loulou's, an under-the-radar lesbian bar where she continues to question "Who am I? Neither male nor female, neither fish nor fowl"—and moves even faster in part five when Toni does indeed become a "girl unwrapped," with all its complications and meanings. The personal is emphasized over the political, which is in fact dealt with somewhat superficially, but that is most likely the author's intent.

Ambitious in scope, at times poetic with strong imagery, this is a literary work that ultimately resonates with hope.

Kirkus Reviews