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Synopsis
This packaged set of three acclaimed novels, The Reformer's
Apprentice, The First Lady of Dos Cacahuates,
and On Her Way Home tracks twelve years — 1875
to 1887 — in the eventful life of headstrong Frieda
Levie as she seeks her place in class-conscious San Francisco,
then in the raw Arizona Territory.
Shunning her Orthodox Jewish father’s expectations
(marriage and grandsons), she espouses the ideals of feminist
Miss O’Hara, leader of the philanthropic Sisters of
Service. When financial reversals impoverish her father, Frieda,
encouraged by Miss O'Hara, forsakes Service to Community for
Service to Family.
After four grinding years as cook in her father’s kosher
boardinghouse, Frieda marries chance acquaintance, Arizona
pioneer Bennie Goldson, a Jew, of sorts, who proffers love,
prestige, and miles of serene desert. Which he delivers, along
with flash floods, sandstorms, heat, bankruptcies, and three,
children.
Reckoning occurs in the sixth year, when her visiting kid
sister is kidnapped by a murderer. Obsessed with reclaiming
the girl and making amends to her parents for this and all
the suffering she’s caused, Frieda, on her own, pits
herself against Arizona’s crude justice system. She
emerges mangled, but certain of who she is and where she wants
to be.
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Synopsis