Turnabout Is Fair Play

Otto von Bosse is an unhappy foot surgeon in Berlin. Jack Holt is a math whiz who is expelled from his private Dallas high school the day before graduation. These two characters are fundamental to the latest novel by Amy Mitchell Poeppel ’88, Far and Away.

But it’s how the lives of Otto’s wife, Greta, and Jack’s mom, Lucy, turn on a dime that drives the story.

Poeppel deftly balances intercultural and linguistic misunderstandings with only slightly exaggerated stereotypes as she weaves the lives of these two families together across multiple time zones, generations, and languages.

Greta planned to hone her skills as an art curator during Otto’s yearlong sabbatical in New York. Then, a last-minute bait-and-switch has them headed to Dallas instead. Otto is thrilled, Greta is crushed, and suddenly they need a place to stay.

Jack spares Lucy the details. But the gist is that a foolish attempt at self-deprecating math humor gets leaked outside his friend group. With no context for it, his classmates immediately transform him from a mostly forgotten geek into a misogynistic loser, or possibly a sex trafficker.

Doomscrolling on Instagram the night before her oldest won’t graduate, Lucy notices that someone she met during her year in Berlin has shared a house swap post. The next morning, she discovers her house—conceived by her NASA-adjacent engineer husband and designed by his brother—has been egged. And the tires of Jack’s Prius have been slashed.

Greta and Lucy don’t even FaceTime before each is on the way to occupy the other’s home. Lucy’s message in German to Otto and Greta proves incomprehensible. They wonder why Lucy is bringing her son and … onions. (It’s actually her 8-year-old twins.)

In Texas, Otto struggles with his colleagues’ Southern twang, but they delight him with their warm welcome and professionalism. He and Greta dress up in finery for a party at a colleague’s home, which turns out to be a backyard barbecue. Otto flourishes. Greta misses her fastidious city apartment.

When their college-student daughter, Emmi, visits, she goes for a run at midday. Practically passed out from the Dallas heat, she’s saved by one of Jack’s classmates. Soon Emmi’s getting an earful about how awful Jack is, leading to an amusing attempt at payback. Meanwhile, Berlin charms Lucy and her children even as they accidentally leave some imprints on the von Bosse’s meticulously kept home.

This quick romp through a summer of challenges reinforces the strength of family and the importance of friendship. And, also, how reliably people grow in myriad ways after deciding to make the best of a situation—whether it’s one they’ve impulsively chosen or found thrust upon them.

Amy Mayer is news director for 90.3 KAZU–NPR in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Amy Mitchell Poeppel ’88
Far and Away
Atria/Emily Bestler Books
400 pages, $18.99

A Survivor’s Search for Truth

In This Happened to Me, Kate Price, associate research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women and senior research scholar at the Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars, tells a harrowing story of survival. Raised in a northern Appalachian mill town marked by poverty, addiction, and violence, she endured childhood abuse and trafficking at the hands of her father. In adulthood, flashbacks, guilt, and anxiety forced her to confront her past. Memories emerged piecemeal, with the help of trauma therapy and a 10-year journalistic investigation to find her truth.

Kate Price
This Happened to Me: A Reckoning
Gallery Books, 336 pages, $29.99

At College in Tumultuous Times

In 1966, the war in Vietnam is raging when 17-year-old Stepanie Williams ’70 arrives at Wellesley. “I am in a crucible of clever young women, demure, conservative and gently-reared,” she writes in The Education of Girls. Her boyfriend is about to be drafted; a student named Hillary Rodham lives across the hall; Henry Kissinger is teaching at Harvard. Williams tells of coming of age against a backdrop of protest, racial strife, and women’s liberation, transforming her into someone far different from what had been expected.

Stephanie Williams ’70
The Education of Girls: Coming of Age in 4 Years that Changed America 1966–1970
Highbury Books, 293 pages, $19.95

Through a Poetic Lens

In Viewfinder, Stephanie Blair Mitchell ’96, director of photography at Harvard University, pairs photographs with her own poetry. Ranging from an 1826 heliograph to contemporary digital experiments, she is in conversation with images both familiar and new. Rather than presenting a comprehensive survey, Mitchell comments in verse on images that resonate historically and emotionally. Readers gain perspective on iconic photographs that have shaped our age, such as Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother and Eddie Adams’ Saigon Execution, finding new depth through her sharp poetic lens.

Stephanie Blair Mitchell ’96
Viewfinder
Finishing Line Press, $24.99

A Secret Revealed

In Outside the Lines, memoirist Helen Fremont ’78 tells the poignant story of her secret love affair with Maddie, a married photojournalist from an aristocratic family. A Boston public defender and daughter of Eastern European immigrants, Fremont crossed paths with Maddie in a writing workshop. The narratives they crafted revealed shared histories of family secrets and a deep connection to the Holocaust. They confront societal taboos, family dynamics, and homophobia. The narrative takes a profound turn when a terminal illness emerges, reshaping the relationships between them and their families.

Helen Fremont ’78
Outside the Lines: A Memoir
Sibylline Digital First, 228 pages, $18