Just Enough to Start Over

“This beautiful and deeply moving novel by Sara Gothelf Bloom takes us through a very hard time in history, but there is so much soul on display that one can only rejoice. Hanna is among the vivid characters in contemporary fiction, and she–with the Dubrovsky sisters from the earlier generation of this marvelous family–will stay in my mind. Just Enough to Start Over is an impressive achievement, one that reminded me at various times of I.B. Singer. A vivid chronicle, told with poetic specificity and hard-won elegance.”
–Jay Parini, author of The Last Station and Borges and Me

“A gorgeously written novel, all at once profound, relatable, and wry. Something narratively miraculous is going on in this realistic, unsaccharine telling of the people, places, and talents that saved three beautiful sisters fleeing Nazi Germany. Woven throughout is the mystery of their stolen art–its plunderers and its fascinating journey. Just Enough to Start Over wowed me.”
–Elinor Lipman, author of The Inn at Lake Devine

A pianist, an artist, and a poet, the three Dubrovsky sisters have grown up in comfort in Mannheim, Germany. As the threat of the Nazi party looms ever larger, the family packs their lives into two crates and flees to China. Just Enough to Start Over follows their experiences as refugees in Shanghai (and London, and Toronto); their crash-landing with a cousin in New York; the slow effort to build a life in a new country; and, later, the struggle of the family’s American daughter to find her own identity outside of their difficult history.

Echoing the Dubrovskys’ odyssey is the story of their three valuable paintings. First stolen, then transported through wartime Europe and the Soviet Union, these artworks and the lives they encounter on their journeys deepen the book’s perspectives. Meanwhile, historical figures including Max Beckmann, the Austrian Expressionist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and members of the Soviet Trophy Brigade all play their parts in this wry and poignant novel of loss, resilience, and the saving grace of creating art.