Doretta's Damnation - Bruckner, Harald Lutz

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Résumé :
Jilted by her lover, Doretta Osram flees Germany and finds a position with a publishing house in Z?rich, Switzerland. She meets Fernando Lopez serendipitously while doing research at the Zentralbibliothek Z?rich (Zurich Central Library). Finding happiness at last in the arms of her handsome Chilean lover, she marries Fernando on Valentine's Day of 1963 and gives birth to their first child, Mario, on the Ides of March a month later. However, when Fernando moves his family back to his ancestral home in the Maipo Valley, the wine country near Santiago, Chile, everything changes. Here, Doretta encounters hate and classism by the person she most wants to accept her --Fernando's mother. Well known in Santiago society for her fame and fortune, Se?ora Esmeralda rejects her only son's choice for a wife because Doretta was born to a Protestant mother and a Jewish father and has nothing to bring to the union except herself -- an unacceptable arrangement that must be rectified. Se?ora Esmeralda puts all her energy into making her daughter-in-law's life a living hell, while Doretta seeks comfort in isolation and sleep, only to be plagued by nightmares of her father's arrest by the Nazis in 1943. Consumed in their own battles of bigotry, hate, terror, and insecurity, neither woman can predict how the tides are about to change, transforming their lives and their relationships forever.

Biographie:
Harald Lutz Bruckner was born in Germany during turbulent times and ventured to the New World where he spent most of his adult life. His work and educational adventures have taken him from merchandising/retailing, the teaching of German and world literature, to an academic career in audiology and the challenges of working with hard-of-hearing and deaf children and adults. Among his favorite academic subjects to teach were offerings in sign language. In 1981, he discovered the magic of painting in transparent watercolors and has never stopped painting. Moving to sunny Arizona from the high country of Colorado in 2003 caused a major shift in his subject matter. He changed from a primarily realistic orientation to one of total abstraction. Since retiring from academia, he has pursued his passions for travel, art, music, and the enjoyment of writing. Chico Bello: A Wagging Tale is his fourteenth novel....

Sommaire:
Jilted by her lover, Doretta Osram flees Germany and finds a position with a publishing house in Z?rich, Switzerland. She meets Fernando Lopez serendipitously while doing research at the Zentralbibliothek Z?rich (Zurich Central Library). Finding happiness at last in the arms of her handsome Chilean lover, she marries Fernando on Valentine's Day of 1963 and gives birth to their first child, Mario, on the Ides of March a month later. However, when Fernando moves his family back to his ancestral home in the Maipo Valley, the wine country near Santiago, Chile, everything changes. Here, Doretta encounters hate and classism by the person she most wants to accept her --Fernando's mother. Well known in Santiago society for her fame and fortune, Se?ora Esmeralda rejects her only son's choice for a wife because Doretta was born to a Protestant mother and a Jewish father and has nothing to bring to the union except herself -- an unacceptable arrangement that must be rectified. Se?ora Esmeralda puts all her energy into making her daughter-in-law's life a living hell, while Doretta seeks comfort in isolation and sleep, only to be plagued by nightmares of her father's arrest by the Nazis in 1943. Consumed in their own battles of bigotry, hate, terror, and insecurity, neither woman can predict how the tides are about to change, transforming their lives and their relationships forever....