Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes

by T. Cooper

"In Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, author T Cooper details the peculiar history of the Lipshitz family, refugees who narrowly escape the 1903 pogroms of Russia. Upon landing at Ellis Island, Esther and Hersh Lipshitz discover their atypically blond-haired, blue-eyed son Reuven is missing. After a yearlong search for the young boy in New York City, the Lipshitz family relocates to Texas, joining a relative already living in the the state's dusty panhandle. Over two decades, Esther ponders the fate of her lost son, and when she first sees a photograph of the equally blond and blue-eyed Charles Lindbergh after his 1927 transatlantic flight, she becomes convinced that the aviator is her grown son Reuven, now grown. Esther's obsession with Lindbergh (Reuven?) leaves far-reaching and insidious effects on the entire Lipshitz lineage." In 2002 in New York City, we meet thrity-year-old T Cooper - the last living Lipshitz, who has recently received in the mail a box from his estranged mother. In it, he finds clippings, photographs, and letters related to Charles Lindbergh and his family, all once carefully preserved by T's great-grandmother Esther. When T is forced back to Texas to bury his suddenly deceased parents, he finds himself the sole inheritor of a family history filled with loose ends, factual errors, and decidedly maniacal behavior. An ex-literary golden boy with a thriving a career as a bar mitzvah entertainer who impersonates the rapper Eminem, T rages against the world in a struggle to make at least some sense of all that came before him, and - in light of his wife's persistent desire to have a baby - what legacy he might leave behind.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Queer, Jewish, Novels, LGBT

490 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

T COOPER is the author of four novels, including the bestselling "The Beaufort Diaries" and "Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes," as well as a brand-new Young Adult book series entitled "Changers." Cooper edited an anthology of original stories entitled "A Fictional History of the United States With Huge Chunks Missing," and his most recent book is the non-fiction "Real Man Adventures" (just released in paperback from McSweeney's Books). He has also written for television, and is the co-founder of a new Empathy Project, Wearechangers.org.

T Cooper was born and raised in Los Angeles, attended Middlebury College in Vermont, and then taught high school in New Orleans before settling in New York City in 1996. He earned an MFA from Columbia University, and in addition to his books, Cooper's work has appeared in a variety of publications and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Believer, One Story, Bomb, Electric Literature, The Brooklyn Review, The Portland Review, Document, and others. His short story "Swimming" was one of "100 Distinguished Stories" in The Best American Short Stories 2008 (ed. Salman Rushdie).

Cooper has been awarded residencies to The MacDowell Colony, Ledig House International, and The Millay Colony (where he was The New York Times Foundation Fellow). Not too long ago, he was a visiting faculty member at Middlebury College.

Cooper also adapted and produced a short film based on his graphic novel "The Beaufort Diaries." The animated short, directed by the book's illustrator Alex Petrowsky and starring actor David Duchovny, was an official selection at several film festivals, including Tribeca Film Festival, South By Southwest, The New Orleans Film Fest, The Worldwide Short Film Festival, and the Anchorage International Film Festival.

Cooper enjoys vintage airplanes, M*A*S*H, the great outdoors, world peace, buckwheat pancakes, and anything to do with pit bull advocacy. He lives with his wife and kids in New York and the South.

Reviews

[Clemens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das Buch, kann man wohl als postmodernen Gesellschaftsroman nennen, der einem über Dreiviertel der Strecke schon den Atem verschlägt, bevor er im letzten Viertel alles noch einmal gründlich durcheinander rüttelt, so dass man als Leser vollkommen perplex zurückbleibt.
Der erste Teil ist der klassische amerikanische Roman über den Verfall einer Familie. Erzählt wird die Geschichte der Familie Lipshitz, die zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts nach den Osterprogromen in Kischinjow in die USA emigriert.
Das Buch setzt ein mit der Ankunft der Familie auf Ellis Island. Dabei geht im Getümmel der jüngste Sohn Ruben verloren. Dieser Verlust wird zum leeren Zentrum dieses Romans, auf den alle anderen Handlungsstränge immer wieder zulaufen, ohne je ans Ziel zu gelangen.
Cooper lässt uns am Schicksal aller weiteren Familienmitglieder teilhaben. Da sind die Eltern Hersch und Esther. Herschs furchtsames Wesen hat die Familie bei den Progromen vor der Untergang bewahrt. Das ist auch das einzige, was Esther ihrem Mann zu Gute hält. Ansonsten ist er für sie ein Ausbund an Langeweile. Ihre Abneigung wächst im Laufe der Zeit ins Unermessliche.
Gleichzeitig verrennt sich Esther über die Jahre immer mehr in die fixe Idee, dass ihr verlorener Sohn Ruben der zu der Zeit berühmte Charles Lindbergh ist. Ihr restliches Leben wird sich nur noch um dieses fixe Idee drehen, womit die gesamte Familie ganz unterschiedlich umgeht, aber alles in allem ein unausgesprochenes Familiengeheimnis bleibt.
Cooper widmet sich auch den anderen Kindern, Ben, Schmuel und Miriam. Aber, wie es Geschichte so an sich hat, verflüchtigen sich diese in der Gesamtheit. Nur bei Miriam verweilt Cooper länger, da sie die Großmutter der:s Erzähler(s):in ist.
Der/die Erzähler:in trägt den gleichen Namen wie die:die Autor:in: T Cooper.
Und obwohl man weiß, dass es sich hierbei um einen Roman handelt, fragt man sich während des Lesens immer wieder einmal, ob man doch nicht eine wahre Familiengeschichte in den Händen hält. Verstärkt wird dieses Gefühl durch den zweiten Teil des Buches, der vorgibt die Entstehung dieses Buches zu erzählen. Die:der Autor:in wechselt in die auktoriale Perspektive und beschreibt, wie sie:er sich in einer Schreibkrise sich darauf konzentrierte, als Eminem-Double zu reüssieren, bevor sie:er anfing, sich in die Familienhistoriographie einzuarbeiten. Cooper verstärkt den Eindruck durch einen angedruckten Familienstammbaum sowie Fotos, die in den Text mit eingestreut werden. An jedes noch so winziges Teilchen dieser gewaltigen Familienlebensgeschichte wurde gedacht. Es ist die reinste Perfektion, aber trotzdem ist es nicht das wahre Leben sondern ein Buch, aber das ein sehr, sehr gutes!

[Lord Beardsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was thoroughly engaging. I love how the author mixes up things stylistically and the tone is wonderful. I literally couldn't put this book down. It's got everything I look for in a good book: humor, sadness, comedy, tragedy...gender dystopia. You name it.

My only criticism was the last bit narrated by the modern day, last remaining Lipshitz, T. I don't really feel like it added anything to the story itself and it seemed a bit self-indulgent more than anything else. It would have been a great start on a rough draft to get someone going on pulling together a final conclusion, but instead it just sort of gives you the feeling of being a bit tacked on. This left the book feeling a little bit unfinished. I can live with that, but I think for some that would be a pretty big disappointment.

Irregardless, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of T Coopers' stuff in the future.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was hugely disappointing. It had a great set up, and the Lipshitz/Lindbergh story was interesting, but the fact that it never actually went anywhere in the end is incredibly frustrating. And just when it seemed like it might, the story cut off, and we switched to the modern day narrator. Who I still hoped would nicely wrap up the story, but instead seemed to have no desire except to be obnoxious enough to distract from the story. And, well, I guess it worked.

[Priscilla Herrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bold work. I loved it and I disliked it intensely. And yet I can't quite get it out of my head. I applaud the author for his ambition!

This is the story of the Lipshitz family and their suffering in the shtetl in Russia. It is the story of their escape and coming to the New World, only to lose their five-year-old son as they go through Ellis Island for processing. They remain in New York for a while but there is no sign of Reuven or what has become of him and then they continue to their destination to rejoin family in Texas.

Esther is haunted by her lost child and comes to believe that Charles Lindbergh is Reuven - that the Lindberghs adopted her beautiful blond boy who didn't look at all Jewish. She becomes more and more obsessed, collecting newspaper clippings of Lindbergh's exploits, and writing to his mother.

And then it seems another book has been appended. It is the first person narration of T Cooper, an Eminem-impersonator and rapper who specializes in Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties. Cooper has been given the box of clippings his grandmother collected - perhaps he would write a book about his grandparents. Cooper's life is clearly chaotic and the book becomes harder and harder to follow. As a reader I wanted to like Esther's grandson but as his narration continued I found this more and more difficult as his life seemed to spin into greater and greater chaos.

This is the only book I've read by Cooper so I have nothing to compare it to. I'm not sure I will read anything else. And yet, I cannot quite get it out of my head...

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Der Anfang des Buchs war absolut großartig, das Ende eines der schlechtesten das ich je gelesen habe. Während ich am Anfang das Buch nicht weglegen konnte, musste ich mich am Ende zwingen das Buch zu beenden. 2,5 Sterne

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggled with whether to give this book three stars or four. I eventually decided to go with my feeling on the majority of the book, which would have rated four, rather than the ending of the book, which had some issues.

There was, as mentioned in other reviews, a drastic change in narrative voice, tone, and perspective in the last portion of the book. There's a blurry line here between memoir and fiction (a line I like to see blurred), so it's possible that the final part of the book is truly from the perspective of the author. As I found the voice grating, misogynistic, and full of rage, I hope it isn't. I read a great short story by this author in The New Yorker, and I'd like to look forward to more of his work.

At the end of the novel, Cooper throws in a "surprise" transgender theme. It wasn't terrifically surprising to me, as I knew him to be a trans author, and the device didn't work for me. At that point I was too comfortable feeling exasperated with the narrator to open up to new information. My empathy was limited by the harshness of the voice, and even the narrator's kinder actions didn't mitigate it.

[Famous · Rating 2 out of 5]

someone saw me reading this book and asked me what i thought of it. i said i didn't know because i just started it - and then i realized i was just about half way through already. half-way through i don't feel committed to reading it yet. curious. obviously easy to read if i got that far along without noticing, but i still feel like the story is just getting started, that each chapter is a snap-shot of leading-up-to-something information, but i'm 170 pages in and don't know what it is yet.... and i haven't yet decided whether i'm going to read the book or not.

Then i got way over half way through it and i lost it. i never lose the book i'm reading, so what does that say? mostly i was glad i was done with it.

[Liz]

this was an awesome book. so well researched, and so interesting and funny. t cooper puts himself as a fictional character in this book (with some pictures), after telling the fictional story of his family and their migration from Russia. his great grandmother is convinced that her lost son is Charles Lindbergh; he is obessed with Eminem. Two angry blondes, there ya go. it's great, and surprising, and awesome.

Oh yeah. And the ending. It's very odd. Yet fitting with the books' overall theme of finding and creating identity...

[Karl Krekeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a thing for books about immigrants and their struggles. That being said, Lipshitz was right up my alley. Something I really loved about this book is that it grounds the story in historical fact, making it seem all the more real. Although I enjoyed the book, I'm not all too sure what the little modern day part at the end was all about.

All in all a great book. If you liked Everything is Illuminated, The Kite Runner, or Life of Pi, this one deserves a shot.

[Straw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give it such a high rating for the first 3/4 of the book, which was artfully written and very interesting. The imagined familial history sprung to life.
However, the last 1/4 annoyed the fuck out of me. I don't know why every queer person who writes in this country thinks I should be interested in their quirky little lives. I am so freaking sick of memoir. I am especially sick of the posturing, self-involvement that comes out of these people.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmmmm, this was one of those books that make you go "wtf?" Take one part interesting, one part depressing and two parts infuriating and you have this book. I was doing okay with the plot line about Russian-Jewish immigrants, depressing as it was, but then it switches over to a self-indulgent modern day plot line about the author that makes you really sorry you read the other 3/4 of the book. Grrrr...

[Ezra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't decide if I was enjoying this book until the end when I started clearly not enjoying it and then the first 3/4 seemed better in comparison. I recommend Beyond The Pale if you want to read a queer narrative about multiple generations of Jewish diaspora, and some earlier parts of this book felt like a direct rip-off from Beyond the Pale.

[Adele · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the whole first part. Like many other people, I found the last part was nearly irrelevant ... at least as it was written. I could have done without quite so much gutter language and attitude toward his parents. Mind you, I can cut loose myself upon occasion, but really! ... most of it was quite unnecessary. I fairly skimmed through it because I grew tired of his rants.

[Jeanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Lipshitz Six story of the Lipshitz family. However, the second part of the book - the author's story - seemed unnecessary and superfluous. I read about six pages of it and then gave up.

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like many other reviewers, I found the first part of this book interesting. The second part was so bad I stopped reading it and have created a new tag on goodreads: unfinished for a reason.

[Wendy · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be honest, I couldn't finish this. I enjoyed the book at the beginning. Jewish experiences in Europe and America, and family sagas, are some of my favorite topics/stories ever. So I settled nicely into this, and felt the menace of just-before-the-pogrom and the devastation of after- and felt like I had just found a book I could really swim in. I stayed up late nights reading. But unfortunately, this is not a family saga. We get a little information in NYC about Ben, but once he leaves NYC for Texas, he just disapperars altogether. The story shifts from Hersh's point of view, primarily, in Ukraine, to Esther's in the US. And I have to say it becomes tedious. We know and understand that she thinks Lindbergh is her lost son. We KNOW and yet it never lets up until she dies. We have a sudden death of Shmuel, and no grieving in the family, Ben and Miriam just kind of come and go but we don't get much sense of them as people.

The book starts off so well, and just goes downhill. The newspaper clippings are a tedious device that I ended up skipping most of. Then we hit part two and...

Wow. Is this some kind of self-indulgent extra-long Facebook rant? This terrible narrator could give 45 a run for his money in terms of misogyny and assholedom. I don't care if it's fiction, I refuse to put up with 100 or so pages - shit, I refuse to put up with 10 pages of rampant sexism and violent throughts directed at women. I have seen some other reviews that state there is a big reveal that the character T is transgender, which is what I thought from looking at the jacket photo of the author anyway, and knowing that T is the name of both author and character. (That is an annoying device to me anyway, and probably why it's taken me 10 years to read this book in the first place. I only kept it because of the queer theme in the first place [I do periodic book purges]). But holy shit, the violent misogyny,the self-important mocking, spewing from the first few pages of the second part is so despicable that I am almost without words. It is really nasty, and I did intially worry aout that when I saw Eminem's name inserted into the family tree. I mean, it is so bad, without anything redeeming to it, that I could not read to the end to see if there is some magical change of heart. I skimmed, and there didn't seem to be. If I want to read or hear about some asshole man talking badly about women and thinking violent thoughts, and generally embodying every icky quality I loathe in people, I'll just turn on the news or eavesdrop into conversations at work. I have never been a fan of the anti-hero, but this takes it too far. If there had been, I don't know, some dialogue between T and his wife that showed him maybe a little kinder, something, maybe I would have seen this through to the end.

[Laura Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very intriguing story of an immigrant family with enough historical references to give it authenticity. The last 130 or so pages take a wild turn into the "two angry blondes" story that is from the viewpoint of the author of the first part. A first the transition is jarring but it's also endearing in a weird way. Overall a really interesting and well written novel. The only reason for 4 stars is the transition between the story stories. Though to some I suppose such a different style and voice is also a testiment to the author's skill.

[Kathleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a complete waste of my time. In the beginning, the plot seemed to show some promise, but that fell apart for me as I realized several things:

1. I was never going to learn what happened to the child who was lost in the very beginning of the book.

2. There were absolutely no likable characters to hook me into their story.

3. The plot of the first 300 pages of the book completely went out the window in the last 100 pages.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Russian immigrant family loses their son on the ferry from Ellis Island to New York. Later, the mother becomes convinced that the son is Charles Lindbergh. The partly fictional story follows the family to Texas and through life. T. Cooper is a descendent of the real-life family portrayed here, and finishes the book with a recounting of his own personal experience. Enjoyed it.

[Megan Edge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first three-quarters of that book, but despised the ending. For that reason I'd like to say it was a well-written book, but I don't think I can.

[Sandy Korom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual book, but interesting reading

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending felt abrupt and confusing and was narrated by a character i truly hated. i did like the first majority of the book, but it was much longer than it needed to be for me

[Sabine Barz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erinnere mich nur noch lückenhaft, fand das Buch aber gut.

[Carpe Librum Bookstore and Art Gallery]

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[Kayla]

Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes
by T.Cooper
Paperback, 448 pages
Published January 30th 2007 by Plume
ISBN 0452288061

The bright red cover and big letter six catch your eye right of the bat. The funky type and the prospect of two angry blondes hints at a dramatic, overly written story. Lipshitz 6 and Two Angry Blondes fools you and is a historical fiction story set in the early 1900's just as immigrants started to flood the United States. Just moving down the street to a new house can sometimes be a huge feat so moving from your home to a foreign country is ten times as daunting.

The Lipshitzs, to escape the threat at home, move to America with the intent on moving to Texas where Esther, the matriarch of the family, has an older brother. The book moves between flashbacks of the Lipshitz's lives in Russia and their time in New York. The family lands at Ellis Island with all of their children, three boys and a little girl. But with the crowds, the excitement and the craziness that encompasses immigration in that time period, their little son Reuven's hand managed to slip away from his mother and he was lost in the crowd. Although Esther's frantic conversation managed to convince some people to think about her lost child, no one really puts in any effort in a city of many. She turns into a crazy woman, seeing her child in other children, going to the Jewish aid society everyday and making her family stay in New York to wait for her son. The family, after several years finally ends up moving on to Texas where Esther and her husband, Hersh finally make themselves at home. As time moves on and their children grow older and start their own families, Esther finds her son in the famous Charles Lindbergh. She becomes convinced that the famous aviator is her lost son. She finds herself following his every move down to her last day with or without her family's support.

I really liked this book. I thought that the diction and word choice was fitting and as pathetic as I thought the mother was, I couldn't put the book down. The book is actually a story written by a grandchild of Esther and Hersh and I really liked the narrated part but when it switches to the modern day story of T.Cooper being the last Lipshitz, I found myself uninterested and bored. I thought that the many levels of the narrated historical book gave the story more depth and it disappeared when the author brought it out of the story. I would recommend this book to any historical fiction lover or anyone who just wants a good read.

[Margarethe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Der letzte Satz des Buches sollte vorangestellt werden, das würde dem Verständnis sehr helfen
"Dieses Scheißbuch -merkt euch meine Worte- werde ich niemals fertig schreiben."
Der Leser fragt sich zwischendruch warum er es überhaupt geschrieben hat. Es wirkt oft unfertig und icht durchdacht.
Der erst Teil handelt von einer russisch-jüdischen Familie die den Sprung(naja die Passage) über den Atlantik wagt. Kurz vor Ellis Island geht ein Kind der Familie verloren. Es ist weg.
Die Familie verbleibt in der Hoffnung auf das Kind einige Zeit in New York siedelt dann aber in Texas bei dem Bruder der Mutter. Die Mutter verfällt dann irgendwann der Idee, dass das verlorene Kind Charles Lindbergh ist, der in dieser Zeit seine Erfolge feiert.
Abrupt endet der erste Teil und wir befinden uns in der Gegenwart bei dem letzten Lipshitz - dem Autor.
Der versucht die Leser mit einer abgedrehte abstrusen Sprache viel Wut und Zorn auf sich und die anderen abzuschrecken in einer Sprache die einfach keinen Spass macht und nerviger Selbsgerechtigkeit. Am Ende gibt es noch eine Wendung, die das Buch nicht unbedingt einem näher bringt aber den Autor etwas menschlicher erscheinen lässt. Schade die Geschichte der Einwanderung gerade als Familiengeschichte hätte etwas mehr Tiefgang oder Liebenswürdigkeit verdient.

[Charlaralotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It ranks up there alongside "Everything is Illuminated" as a Jews in America/Back in the Homeland story. It's beautifully & hauntingly written. I'd never come across such a detailed description of a pogrom. Absolutely horrific. Lots of general history on why Jews emigrated from Russian Poland in the late 1800s, which I enjoyed as that's when my relatives were coming over. Lots of info about why Galveston, Texas was such a big port of entry--always wondered about this as paternal grandmother's family went this route.

The daily trudge to the "lost & found" in NYC to see if the son had turned up--heartbreaking. The mother's fixation on Charles Lindbergh--kinda perfectly ironic, all things considered.

I finally got my dad to read it & he liked it too, so I was happy. We both agreed that the very short second part of the book could easily have been excised. It's a different story entirely.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about immigrants who come to America and their descendants. The first part of the book, the family loses one of their sons as they arrive on Ellis Island. As the years go buy the mother becomes convinced that Charles Lindberg sp? is her missing son all grown up. She becomes quite obsessed with him. The later part of the novel is about her great-grandson who's girlfriend wants to make a baby with him. He's a Jewish Eminem impersonator. The main thing about this part of the book is that he has to go home and deal with his drug addicted brother while he buries his parents who were just killed in an automobile accident. There's a surprising reveal that I won't ruin by telling you now. Get reading. This author is really popular in Germany right now. Like a rockstar. I don't really get that but it's cool.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great novel of the American dream as a dark shadow: how the Lipshitz family from Europe is splintered forever when a young son is separated from them upon arriving to America in the early 1900's. The remaining children struggle to live, but how many kids mother realizes that their long lost Jewish son "is" actually Charles Lindbergh, blond hair blue eyed aviator epitome of everything American, and murky defender of Antisemitism and rising Nazism? Letters making up the narrative act as pleas, newspapers as propaganda and the novel takes a final brilliant skew, as the last living Lipshitz, T. Cooper "himself," (a riotous Eminem impersonator) deals with the reality of familial histories and the great American hope and poison of self re-invention.

[Lindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 316 pages of this novel deserve a five-star rating. T Cooper has an excellent style, and here tells the story of a family of Russian-Jews immigrating to the United States in 1907. After landing at Ellis Island, they lose one of their children, and the story follows the fates of the remaining family members over several generations. On page 319 however, the tone of the book shifts completely, and the story picks up with the last surviving family member who happens to be a modern day Eminem impersonator...this is where things get strange. Although I did not have a lot of patience for this last chapter, I would still highly recommend the book (including reading it through to the end).