Review by Booklist Review
At 83, Sylvia Olin Bernstein wants to tell her own story. Not that of the "Contemptuous S.O.B.," as she is known in legal circles, but that of the motherless child, brilliant Harvard law student, dreamy young wife, reluctant mother, and groundbreaking women's rights advocate, all of which culminated in her appointment as the first woman associate justice of the Supreme Court. Influenced by a cousin recently freed from a Nazi concentration camp, Sylvia gains a strength and perspective that she might not have acquired, since her mother died while Sylvia was just a child. The challenges of coping with the rampant sexism that plagued her through law school and beyond are nothing compared to the struggles Sylvia confronts when her husband dies and she becomes estranged from their daughter. Readers will, of necessity, think of real-life trailblazers Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but Silver wisely brings a universality to Sylvia's story of sacrifice and determination, making it recognizable to women of every era, background, and profession who battle to forge their own paths against society's limiting expectations.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Silver (The Tincture of Time) draws on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her incisive latest. Raised in Brooklyn in the 1940s, Sylvia Olin Bernstein grows up to become a vocal advocate for gender equality and a Supreme Court justice known as "the contemptuous S.O.B." Silver frames the narrative as a memoir by the elderly Sylvia in which she recounts her childhood, college years, early career as a lawyer, and experiences as a young wife and mother. Though the reader gets to know Sylvia as a litigator, Silver keeps the focus on her personal life, and particularly on the women in it: the mother who dies when Sylvia is a teenager, the Holocaust survivor cousin who helps to raise her, the law school roommate who experiences sexual harassment, and the daughter with whom Sylvia has a fraught relationship. The parallels to Ginsburg are obvious, but Silver wisely gives Sylvia her own path to travel, emphasizing how her professional goals both shape and are shaped by her experiences as a woman. Ginsburg's many admirers will be captivated by her literary counterpart. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (July)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
In her second novel, Silver takes her protagonist--who resembles Ruth Bader Ginsburg--from a humble start in Brooklyn to the Supreme Court. Justice Sylvia Olin Bernstein grew up in a working-class family, went to an elite law school at a time when few women were admitted, and built a career fighting for civil rights--especially rights for women--before ascending to the highest court in the land. In a memoir found after her death, our protagonist begins her story in 1949, when her father's cousin comes to live with her family. Mariana survived Auschwitz, and her belief that the American system of laws--unlike Germany's--could forestall genocide is one of the things that gets Sylvia thinking about justice. When the rabbi presiding over her mother's funeral says that women don't count to make a minyan, she begins to think about equality for women. When she's at Harvard, her own pregnancy almost puts an abrupt end to her education. After this, fighting for women's rights will become her life's work. Although Silver has created a character of world-historical importance, she places her on a very small stage, surrounded by a very small cast. Almost everyone Sylvia interacts with will become a significant person in her life. This is a serious limitation that doesn't work to the book's benefit. And to be clear: Small doesn't mean intimate. Even though this is a first-person recollection, Sylvia remains something of a cypher. Sylvia's relationship with Mariana evolves over the course of the novel, but her husband, her best friend, and her daughter seem like useful accessories rather than real people. Most importantly, the author's choice to eschew interactions with minor characters--her peers at Harvard, her colleagues at every stage of her career, judges at various levels of the judiciary--and elide years at a time make it seem like winning landmark victories for women and serving on the Supreme Court were not so hard at all for a Jewish woman born in the 1930s. A novel that clocks in at almost 400 pages shouldn't feel like a detailed outline, but this one often does. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
