REVIEWS

The Boston Globe
17 August 2008, review by Diane White

Sidura Ludwig's first novel, Holding My Breath is a lovely coming-of-age story told in a voice that is tender, sad, and funny. In understated prose, Ludwig convincingly portrays a time and a place. Narrator Beth Levy is growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s and '60s, the youngest member of a Jewish family that holds its secrets close.

An only child, she lives with her father and her strong-willed mother above the family pharmacy. Beth is close to her two maternal aunts, teenage Sarah, who is beautiful, sexy, and rebellious, and Carrie, an unmarried seamstress, who is depressed for reasons that eventually emerge. Carrie tells Beth stories about her beloved brother Phil, a pilot who died in North Africa in World War II. Carrie allows Beth to read Phil's journals and Beth becomes obsessed, as he was, with astronomy. As Beth matures she is torn between her mother's expectation that she will remain in Winnipeg and her ambition to become a scientist. The deceptive simplicity of Ludwig's style illuminates her novel's emotional depth.

Chicago Jewish Star
15-28 August 2008, review by Gila Wertheimer

This is a coming-of-age story set in the Canadian city of Winnipeg in the 1950s and '60s. To former Winnipegers, especially the North Enders, it will all be very familiar.

With a direct style and linear narrative, Ludwig tells the story of a family through the eyes and voice of one of its youngest members.Like so many family stories, it is one of the tension between family obligation and responsibility, and individual hopes and dreams.

Beth, born in 1952, is the only child of Goldie and Saul Levy, who own a drugstore in Win ni peg's North End. They struggle to earn a living, and then to better themselves, as was the way of the 1950s.

Beth's pharmacist father Saul is a steady, solid presence, but Ludwig's focus is on the women of Beth's life -- her grandmother, her mother and her mother's sisters, Sarah and Carrie.

There was also a brother, Phil, a pilot during the war who was killed in action. Carrie keeps his image very much alive for Beth, and it is through his journals that Beth develops an interest in astronomy that eventually leads to her career path.

Each in her own way, the women all influence Beth's life. Her mother Goldie, is conventional, striving to become part of the Jewish community, and very much the hub around which the family revolves, especially after their mother dies.

Beth chafes at the restraints her mother insists on, fanscinated by her aunt Sarah, a beautiful, spirited woman who yearns to be a singer. Then there's Carrie - solitary, unexciting. Loyal,dependable. But she too, as Beth learns, has a past, and she too, has yearnings and longings.

Through her mother and her aunts, Beth learns to shape her own life, as she seeks to find the balance between family obligation and duty, and the pursuit of her own dreams and her independence.

Fortunately for her, the times are changing and she doesn't have to make the stark choice between settling down and becoming a wife and mother, or leaving that behind and instead becoming a scientist. By the end, Beth need no longer hold her breath, as if waiting for life to begin. She can finally exhale - it has begun.

Ludwig tells an absorbing story, and we look forward to hearing more from this young writer.

BOOKLIST
1 August 2008, review by Kevin Clouther

Ludwig's debut focuses on the lives of four women in post - World War II Canada. Their characters are familiar: one is young and pretty and dreams of fame, one harbours a dark secret, one stoically tries to keep the family together, and one quietly observes them all. Ludwig slowly reveals the flaws of each character while resisiting the temptation to absolve their sins at the end. She does not always trust her characterization, however, and too often the women shout warnings, such as " Don't tell me how to live my life" and "Don't you make her grow up too fast,"which feel cribbed from a soap opera. A common theme in the story is people disappearing: sometimes they come back, but more often they do not, leaving those they left behind to endure. Although Ludwig's voice is still forming, her ability to convey the obligation of family is mature, especially as it relates to betrayal and the seeming impossibility of forgiveness.

Kirkus
15 June 2008

Ludwig's debut novel, first published in Canada in 2007, concerns a young Jewish Canadian woman who breaks through the web of her family's conformity to follow her dream.

When Beth Levy is born, her family's constellation of relationships and roles is as firmly set as the stars in the heavens. Her stoic grandparents, Russian immigrants in Winnipeg, anchor the family in practicality and old-world values. Beth's mother, Goldie, struggles to rise in middle-class Jewish society, but in her struggle to be a dutiful daughter and wife, she is guided more by convention than progress. Goldie's sisters' lives follow different trajectories: Carrie has a constrained life, hiding a secret tragedy, while Sarah, the baby of the family, chafes against the narrow confines of Jewish society in Winnipeg and abandons her husband and young daughter. Hovering over the sisters is Beth's uncle, Phil, who died in World War II. They sense Phil's continuing presence, drawing comfort, support, even guilt from the feeling that he is nearby. When Beth discovers Phil's journal, which her mother had hidden away, she is entranced by his descriptions of the stars and celestial bodies and his dream of space exploration. She embarks on her own astronomical pursuits, lying in the backyard staring at the night sky just as Phil did. Her mother refuses to acknowledge Beth's interest in astronomy, instead pressuring her to excel at Hebrew school, attend Hadassah meetings and plan an advantageous marriage. Struggling to satisfy her mother while following her own dream, Beth feels "like my life was becoming a series of one-act plays where I played myself but as different characters." As she becomes an adult, she finds an unlikely ally who helps her make her dream a reality.

A loving yet unsentimental look at Jewish assimilation in Canada. Ludwig deftly describes the push-pull that burdens the children of immigrant parents, a dance between tradition and progress. (Agent: Denise Bukowski/The Bukowski Agency)

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
16 June 2008

Ludwig's nicely observed debut, a coming-of-age tale, often shies away from the powerful themes it raises. Born in 1952 to a close-knit Jewish-Canadian family in Winnipeg, Beth Levy dreams of becoming an astronaut, an ambition partly inspired by stories of her late uncle, who died before Beth was born but left behind his fascination with the stars. On Beth's first day in elementary school, her widowed grandmother dies, and Beth's mother, Goldie, assumes responsibility for Goldie's younger siblings, who become like older sisters to Beth. Teenage Sarah is beautiful and restless, and yearns to be an actress or a singer. Carrie, a withdrawn seamstress overwhelmed by private tragedy, encourages Beth to follow her passions, although Beth's parents expect her to live out a quiet middle-class life in Winnipeg. The drama is understated throughout; crises occur, but have little influence on the steady pace of the narrative. Issues such as anti-Semitism and adolescent cruelty surface briefly and are quickly dropped. The result is a charming, if less than courageous, performance. (Aug.)

THE TELEGRAPH
26 April 2008

The restrained style of Sidura Ludwig's debut novel, Holding My Breath , matches its scale.

Beth Levy is a Jewish-Canadian girl growing up in Winnipeg in the 1960s. She lives with her mother, Goldie, and near her two aunts, Carrie and Sarah, who are young enough to seem like older sisters.

Beth is attracted to all three: Goldie is active in Jewish women's groups and seeks, gently, to preserve family traditions; Carrie is a seamstress who fell in love when she was young but has stayed single; and Sarah is a beautiful and impetuous women who marries, then runs away to become a jazz singer. Though the set-up is a little schematic, the three women are subtly drawn and never quite conform to your expectations.

Beth's life is filled with the small dramas of adolescence. At 11 she is asked to read an essay on Romeo and Juliet at her mother's Monday Club. She admires the way the women look: "I had been waiting for so long to have a face like that, all angles and curves, a maze and mystery the way the skin fell elegantly over the bone. None of these women looked cheap."

Under Sarah's influence, though, she wears too much make-up to the reading. "Don't you look grown up?" one woman says. Her mother takes her away to scrub her face.

Later, romance becomes a way of exploring identity and freedom. Beth's friend, Cheryl, marries a Japanese man against her parents' wishes, and moves to Japan. Has she swapped one restrictive family for another? Beth goes out with a non-Jewish boy, Tim, but they break it off. A tender moment arises when, at a dinner to honour her mother's service to Jewish groups, she sees him working as a waiter.

Holding My Breath is calm and absorbing, its themes handled with delicacy. The writing is precise with each lyrical moment earned. When Beth decides whether to leave home, Ludwig denies us an easy emotional response: every decision has its price.

THE GUARDIAN, First Fiction Round Up
8 March 2008

Ludwig's first novel is a warm, deftly rendered Jewish family saga set in 1950s and 60s Canada. Beth Levy, an only child, lives with her parents above their pharmacy in Winnipeg. Maternal grandmother Baba and aunts Carrie and Sarah share a house nearby. Unmarried seamstress Carrie is Beth's protector - thin, tense, disappointed; younger Sarah is rebellious and deceptively carefree. Beth worships them equally, and is curious about their dead brother Phil, a second-world-war hero. Submerged in his old diaries, she is inspired by his interest in space exploration and daydreams about being an astronomer; but dominating mother Goldie has other plans, which also do not include Beth's friendship with local boy Tim. Conflict and fiercely protected secrets and myths are the main themes here. Nothing startling, but the characters are distinctive and Ludwig has a talent for storytelling.

THE JEWISH POST AND NEWS
7 March 2007, review by Joseph Leven

Ludwig writes with a straightforward, free-flowing style. Her dialogues in particular sound real and believable. The characters keep on developing throughout the novel, showing us new sides of themselves as the story progresses - more...

THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
4 March 2007, review by Elizabeth Hopkins

[Ludwig's] sensitive and detailed exploration of character, combined with her skill at evoking the specificities of time and place, create something to which everyone can relate - more...

THE GLOBE AND MAIL
3 March 2007, review by Ami Sands Brodoff

Ludwig's setting, the North End of Winnipeg, is richly drawn without intruding on the calm, quiet story. Compelling historical events -- the aftermath of the war, the Russian launch of Sputnik and the assassination of Martin Luther King -- are kept at bay, underlining the insularity of the Levys' lives - more...

THE JEWISH INDEPENDENT
15 December 2006, review by Cynthia Ramsay

Holding My Breath by Sidura Ludwig, which will be released by Key Porter Books in March 2007, is worth the wait - more...

CLARE MORRALL
Man Booker Prize Finalist, author of Astonishing Splashes of Colour

I thought this was a perceptive and satisfying story. It is quietly compelling, told in clear, uncluttered prose, offering insight into a Jewish Canadian family which can never entirely escape its own history. Sidura Ludwig explores the universal conflict between individual needs and family ties with sympathy and compassion.

MARGARET SWEATMAN
Playwright, novelist, author of When Alice Lay Down with Peter

This is a portrait of an era, a city, a family; a story lovingly told by a girl born into Winnipeg's post-War Jewish community. Sidura Ludwig writes from a deeply felt knowledge of this time and place, all the more remarkable because she's too young to know it all first hand. Here are three sisters, three distinct responses to the persuasions of family, seen through the eyes of daughter torn between familial devotion and restless, brilliant ambition. This novel depicts the tremendous capacity for love and the sometimes tragic tendency to hold our loved ones too tight.

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