The First Desire

by Nancy Reisman

1929. Buffalo, New York. A beautiful July day, the kind one waits for through the long, cold winters. Sadie Feldstein, née Cohen, looks out her window at the unexpected sight of her brother, Irving. His news is even more unexpected, and unsettling: their elder sister, Goldie, has vanished without a trace.

With Goldie's disappearance as the catalyst, The First Desire takes us deep into the life of the Cohen family and an American city, from the Great Depression to the years immediately following World War II. The story of the Cohens is seamlessly told from the various perspectives of siblings Sadie, Jo, Goldie, and Irving—each of whose worlds is upended over the course of the novel, the smooth veneer of their lives giving way to the vulnerabilities and secrets they've managed to keep hidden—and through the eyes of Lillian, the beautiful woman their father, Abe, took as a lover as his wife was dying. But while Abe's affair with Lillian stuns his children, they are even more shocked by his cold anger in the wake of Goldie's disappearance.

The First Desire is a book of great emotional power that brings to life the weave of love, grief, tradition, and desire that binds a family together, even through the tumultuous times that threaten to tear it apart.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, New York

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 2004

Reviews

[Rick Moody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't know how I missed this in 2004, but it is an exceptionally strong family novel. The rotating points of view of the members of the Cohen family, the sisters, brothers, lovers, etc., are done with great care and compassion. It's hard to know how Reisman knows as much about all these people as she does. Louts, shut-ins, egomaniacs, avatars of duty and responsibility, they are all handled with the same Woolfian perspicacity. Also, the author recreates 1929-1950, in Buffalo, NY, with vividness and clarity. The trajectory of the whole is sad, grim, accurate, in a way, e.g., that cinema can no longer do or is unwilling to do, such that one does have the realist "aha" that is the great virtue of novels in this idiom. As a person who himself wrote a family novel once upon a time, I can say that this is as good an example as I have read recently, by a writer who deserves well more attention than she has so far gotten.

[Saleh MoonWalker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Onvan : The First Desire - Nevisande : Nancy Reisman - ISBN : 1400077990 - ISBN13 : 9781400077991 - Dar 320 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2004

[Keith Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reisman's first novel. A big story put in a small place and allowed to play out in the confines of one family. I think it had a marvelous control of both style and ambition. Here's a little thing I wrote back when it first came out:

https://annarborobserver.com/articles...

[Cheryl Gatling]

The Cohens are a Jewish family in Buffalo. Father Abe owns a jewelry store. His wife is dead. He has five grown children. One day daughter Goldie goes out to do some shopping and never comes home. The book begins as a mystery. What has happened to Goldie? Is she dead? Will she come back? How will her absence change the family members she left behind?

But years go by, and the story becomes about more than Goldie's absence. It's about the whole more or less dysfunctional family. Sadie, the respectable daughter, has married a dentist. Celia has something mentally wrong with her. She wanders off, and is afraid to bathe. Jo is a closeted lesbian. She begins briefly to blossom when she falls in love with a co-worker, but then grows bitter when that woman marries, and Jo gets stuck with the care of Celia. Irving, the only son, likes gambling and drinking and the wrong kind of women.

The Cohens irritate each other. They disappoint each other. They misunderstand each other. But... there they are. What is the first desire? The book seems to answer that question. It says that for young Goldie, the first desire was to be with her mother. But it is not that simple. There is enough desire in the novel to fill a term paper, if not a master's thesis. All the Cohens want things. Sometimes they get them. Sometimes they don't. They question themselves, what do they want? They question each other. Lillian, Abe's long-time mistress, wanted to marry him, and have the nice house. Irving wanted to be a smooth man of the world with an Anglo name like Thomas. It seems that only Goldie got what she wanted, which was away.

The narrative takes us into the head of each character in turn, except for Abe and Celia. It makes sense to the story that we never experience Abe's thoughts, because he is a remote and reserved kind of character, although his expectations cast a strong shadow over everyone else. I was disappointed that we never got to hear from Celia, though, because she is such an interesting character. What exactly is wrong with Celia? Mental illness? Personality disorder? I would have liked to know what she was thinking.

In general, all of these characters seemed to think about life just a bit too much. They experience the unreality of their surroundings. They feel that they are splintering, or fading, or fizzing. Their sense of self is shifting or tenuous. I found this hard to buy. I can accept that some people of artistic temperament experience life this way, and that "normal" people have such feelings at rare moments of great stress. But every member of a family? I think most people accept life at face value most of the time. I thought these passages, although beautifully written, were overwritten. What interested me was the changes wrought by the years on one family.

[Merry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just re-discovered the identity of this book. A good book, but very special to me because it is about a Jewish family in Buffalo during the first half of the 20th century, including a psychotic sister named Celia. All true of the paternal side of my family. Most was from before I was born, but a real sense of a community that was familiar with and wanted to know more about. Nostalgic, moody.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel began as a 3-star quality, solid character development but slow plot. It's a 21-year history of the most dysfunctional family on earth. But with all the secrets I'd think the plot would go somewhere. Lillian didn't seem like a necessary character except what she represented to Abe but it wasn't fleshed out. I dropped my rating to 2 stars because the ending was unsatisfying. The drama wasn't explained and the characters' actions were too ridiculous to believe.

[Deanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried for 25 pages but I just couldn't muster up any interest in Goldie's disappearance or how her family felt about it.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this is great. Reisman's writing is beautiful, and sets a time and place and family securely. I loved this book at the beginning, but once the "mystery" is solved and we know what happened to Bertha, the book seems to lose some of its urgency. The chapters switch points of view among a few different characters, and some are definitely more interesting than others (some of this is just my purely personal dislike of reading or watching anything about gambling and playing cards, which is a bit where the focus is on Irving in the beginning).

This was the first book I'd read in a while that made me feel like I was reading something literate and worthwhile, getting to know this family - but by the end I felt dissatisfied, as if I hadn't gotten enough. For all its pages, for all the familial interactions, I didn't feel as if I had really gotten to know anyone that well. I just wanted more and I especially wanted to know what was wrong with Celia.

This is a good novel, the writing is gorgeous, but I just wanted more - story, more connection among the characters, and even just a little more information about them. I would recommend this with reservations. I certainly don't feel it's a waste of time, but it's not quite a keeper for me.

[MARY L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of the Cohen family of Lancaster, NY from 1929 when Goldie becomes missing until 1950. The four sisters and brother tell their stories as Jewish family members living through death, war, and sickness that leaves their lives shattered.

[Pamela Byarlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love when books can have me hating someone at the start and loving them by the end. perhaps i’m just a sucker for the antagonist. either way, beautifully written

“Bill has taken his second favorite chair—a distant second…” got me

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. Written about a Jewish family in Buffalo New York through the years of 1920 through 1950. Very well written, describing the families, internal and external influences. I would definitely recommend.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written family novel taking place in the 1930’s and ‘40’s. If you enjoy Alice McDermott, Anne Tyler or Sue Miller this hidden gem is for you.

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading a little over 50 pages, I decided to quit. Just a little too weird for me and I could not even begin to think how this was going to develop as a story.

[Bamboozlepig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too disjointed. Never really connected with any of the characters enough to care about them.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well done novel of a Jewish/American Buffalo, NY family from 1929 through WW2. The strength of this book is in the author's ability to draw out the characters of the family members, the flaws, the strengths, their secrets, traditions, and of course love.

[Katherine Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goldie Cohen is missing from her family’s home in Buffalo, New York. We learn this fact in the first few pages of Nancy Reisman’s absorbing and compelling novel, The First Desire. The year is 1929 and Goldie’s disappearance has thrown the Cohen family into turmoil. In her late twenties and the oldest of five adult children, Goldie directs the household after the recent death of their mother Rebecca. Has Goldie been kidnapped, has she fallen victim to a tragic accident or has she simply left?

Sister Sadie posts signs and notifies the police. After just a couple of weeks and deaf to the pleas of his grown children, Goldie’s father, Abe Cohen, decides that the family will sit Shiva. With this public pronouncement that “Goldie is dead to him", we learn that Goldie’s father believes Goldie has left the family. Abe Cohen’s patriarchal decision-making process gives us our first glance at his stubbornness, inflexibility and emotional impact on his family.

Abe and Rebecca Cohen were born and raised in Poland where family traditions were rigid and choices few. The reliable routines of the Cohen family life in Buffalo provide both an oasis and a prison for the family. Except for Sadie, who lives with her husband Bill and their two daughters across town, the other four siblings live and work with their widowed father in the family jewelry store. Though the Cohen family members’ lives are intertwined, they each live on their own emotional island. They need each other and they resent each other. Their freedom is constrained by money, societal norms, and the customs of their Jewish faith.

However living in Buffalo, not Poland, has allowed these five adult siblings to consider their own needs. So though they remain diligent and dutiful to the family, they feel stifled and suffocated. By our modern sensibilities, they should enjoy family camaraderie. Instead, the siblings feel oppressed by their roles and responsibilities. They experience the sweetness of being known by their family while seeking anonymity. The freedom to reinvent oneself or seek a new direction seems impossible. These adult siblings feel frozen in time; their maturation is stunted. In addition, as the years pass, the shadow of anti-Semitism in the United States and the horrors in Europe hover in the Buffalo air.

Reisman’s novel explores family interactions to offer an explanation of WHY Goldie did what she did. By probing into each of the character’s perspectives (including Goldie's), Reisman strengthens our understanding of their needs and longings. Their desires seem to center around autonomy and sexual fulfillment. Reisman describes her character’s daily thoughts and deeper aspirations with empathy and compassion.

I loved the aching humanity of this novel. I wish Reisman had delved into the details of these siblings’ early years, as it would have given readers a greater understanding of the dynamics between the family members in their adulthood. Yet, Nancy Reisman’s The First Desire beautifully illustrates how family love can both comfort and smother. 4/5

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

BookList: The bonds of family are like spiderwebs: deceptively delicate but tough beyond all reason should we try to break them. When Goldie Cohen, 33, goes missing following her mother’s death and her father’s hasty attachment to the town vixen, the family begins to unravel. Spanning 21 years, from the late 1920s to the ’50s, Reisman’s debut novel provides a glimpse into a splintered Jewish Russian immigrant family in upstate New York. Told from the alternating perspectives of the various Cohen children, the story reveals the ways in which Goldie’s memory lingers and lays bare the distances deepening between the rest of the family members. Sadie, a young wife and mother, takes on the family burden once managed by her older sister: her reckless brother, imbalanced sister, and recalcitrant father, whose expectations and silences engulf them all. Reminiscent of Julia Glass’ Three Junes (2002), the novel portrays a subtle dance of interdependence and disconnection. In luminous prose that showcases a cacophony of voices, Reisman exposes how our families can be “the most familiar of strangers.” -- MishaStone (BookList, 09-01-2004, p64)

[Michele · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into this book. it is essentially character-driven, everything revolving around the siblings in the family, and the mistress of the father. I thought it was odd to include Lillian, but not all of the siblings. These books that tell the story from the perspective of different people always seem slightly unsatisfying to me in that they don't tell the story from all of the people in the same situation and often seem to include some random other person. Ultimately, I found the ending unsatisfying, although I am not sure what I expected. In addition, the book never tied the title into the novel itself. There was one passing reference to what the *second* desire was (although I can't remember what that was now) but no mention of the first desire at all. And it wasn't clear at all from the book. It also wasn't as though there was a different "first desire" for each sibling and that you would know that from reading each character's passages.

[Kristi · Rating 1 out of 5]

omg the LONGEST Short STORY Ever.

Not a time period i like at all.

What else can i say? I don't see this as a re read.

I actually couldn't tell you what the firt desire was? maybe to be close to family or maybe to be away from them. There was no reality busting in on them, no scrubbing of toilets or regular old tuesday bowling night to ground them, the mystery was no mystery and no one really cared about anyone anyway. ugg, nothing was beautiful, not one single moment was untouched by ugly, not the falls, not the orange sunset, not the garden, not the lemonade, a few times i thought the chocolates and pasteries might be pretty but not so much.

and the ending, well a bit unexpected but don't we all wish we could have done that and walked away, but then to where?

a short story yes. a novel no.

[Cynthia Vengraitis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started out really well but I felt disappointed by the end. Beautifully written albeit wordy at times. It's the story of a well to do Jewish family in Buffalo, NY. The story begins in the late 1920s and ends in 1950.
The characters (5 grown children - 4 women and 1 man) have just lost their mother to cancer, then the eldest leaves without provocation or explanation.
The story is told from everyone's perspective except one (unfortunately the character who'd probably have been the most interesting.) They all want to be part of life, but they never seem to be able to figure out how to just be, let alone be part of their family. The characters just didn't grow or change enough for me. So although I enjoyed the story, at the end felt kind of 'meh.'

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read in a long time. It is set locally -- in Buffalo -- and it really looks into each of the characters, all part of Jewish family in the early 1900's. I found the frustration that each character lived with very believable and sympathized with their feelings of being trapped. It seemed only Goldie could break free, and maybe in her own way, due to her "simpleness" Celia was able to be more free. But Jo, Sadie, and Irving have their limitations and frustrations. Somehow though I think Sadie is the happiest of them. Anyway, I recommend this book for those who are into character-driven stories and probing emotions.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first desire is for the mother, the second to disappear.

This was not my favorite read. I liked it better in the first half. I just don't care for (spoiler alert) books where nothing happens to transform the characters, and nobody grows by the end. Its just a sad, broken remnant of a family by the books end, and I think my reading time might have been better well spent. I did enjoy her writing and the initial concept and premise.

Now reading the Book of Jonah, the Story Hour, and How's Your Faith.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story of the Cohen family. I have a feeling a lot of people would think this book is boring. There aren't any climatic scenes in the story, but I don't mind a "quiet" story once in a while if I like the way the author writes. I felt like I got to know the characters pretty well. The ending wasn't "tied up in a neat bow" but that was ok. Sometimes it's ok to imagine where I think the story would go.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hadn't realized when I started it that I had read it already ten years ago. That means it was less than memorable -- dark and psychological study, like Sinclair's Wasteland. Jewish Buffalo quite incidental.

[Celeste Ng]

A quiet, thoughtful book that stayed with me long after I read it. I read it over again whenever I need a reminder of how powerful clean, pure, distilled prose can be.

[Geoffrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want your literature to match your furniture, you will definitely like this!

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Critics generally applaud The First Desire as a triumph of style over substance

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that this book takes place in Western NY. The writing is fabulous and Reisman captures the essence of everyday life and life over time perfectly.

[Diane Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great book. It held my interest right from the start; wondering what happened to the missing sister, Goldie.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in 2006 and absolutely loved it. The language, the secrets, the slow accretion of life . . . am now listening to the audiobook. Looking forward to Reisman's next book.