Missing Lucile

August 15, 2010

Orange Prize–winning novelist Berne (The Ghost at the Table, 2006, etc.) shapes a lovely, melancholic biography of her grandmother, despite modest background information.

Because her grandmother left little behind when she died in 1932, the author admits to feeling at times like she is writing a ghost story. "I have to do a little historical tap dancing," writes Berne, and she has a suave way of going about the process. It helps that she writes with polish and insight: "bereavement, like passion, has no proper notion of scale, and what form it takes depends mostly on the character of the mourner." That bereavement was nurtured by her father, who lost his mother—Lucile Kroger Berne, daughter of the Cincinnati supermarket king—when he was six. With this biography, the author tenders a well-turned portrait of him as well—restless, irritable, charming, sympathetic, envious. Berne worked with what was available, including a few diaries and photo albums, but her greatest asset was Lucile's milieu. Cincinnati at the turn of the century was a memorable place, and the rise of the Kroger supermarket empire becomes a satisfying rags-to-riches story in Berne's capable hands. Lucile played a role in the creation of that empire, only to be shunted aside when her brothers returned from war. In addition to archival resources, the author taps the acumen of Susan Sontag, Ambrose Bierce, Virginia Woolf and others, rendering Lucile as a significant presence on the Wellesley College campus, where she matriculated, and during the year she spent in France helping knit the country together after World War I. Photographs from Lucile's albums provide further context to her life.

A lyrical character sketch, vivid even through the smoky glass of time.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2010
Bernes father, John Henry, lost his mother, Lucile, at an early age, an experience thats haunted him his entire life. Now, as he battles cancer, his daughter wants to help him accomplish something that has eluded him for his 80-plus years: find out who Lucile Kroger really was. The daughter of self-made American grocer Bernard Kroger, Lucile led what many would consider a charmed life, growing up in a sprawling Cincinnati mansion at the turn of the century. Alas, her father was an often difficult man, and when she went to work for him as the Kroger empires treasurer, it was a challenging endeavor. Award-winning novelist Berne (The Ghost at the Table, 2006) pores through what turns out to be a rather paltry collection of Kroger family keepsakes in an effort to understand Lucile, from her college years at Wellesley to her stint as a relief worker in post-WWII France. With few facts to go on, the author must reconstruct much of her family history. The effort is laudable, but the end result is only mildly engaging.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)