How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #1
"She thinks—she believes—she once lived in a castle! … "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. A goddamned fairy-tale princess, Becca. With a Yiddish accent. If she's not crazy believing it—you are. Grow up, Becca." (2.56)
This quote is telling, not just because of what it says about how Big Sis Sylvia sees Gemma, but also because of how she sees Becca, her youngest sister. Sounds like some serious ageism in both directions.
Quote #2
"I was the princess in the castle in the sleeping woods. And there came a great dark mist and we all fell asleep. But the prince kissed me awake. Only me." (2.73)
As it turns out, this part of the story was practically literal: the great dark mist was poisonous gas, and the kiss was the kiss of life, as in CPR. That metaphor got real creepy real fast.
Quote #3
Her skin, like old parchment on a bone stretcher, had been map-like; the careful traceries of her age showing where and how she had lived. Except that none of them knew where she had lived as a child. Only that she had come to America before the Second World War. (4.20)
Though Gemma was the treasured matriarch of her family, no one knew too much about her. Funny they pay such close attention to her old-lady skin but don't bother to ask where she's from.
Quote #4
"No one I knew ever called her Gitl," Mrs. Berlin said. "But then I knew no one from the old country. I thought her name was Genevieve." "You didn't know your own mother's real name?" Mike was amazed. (4.73-4.74)
Okay, what if her true name were Rumpelstiltskin? Just throwing that out there.
Quote #5
"She never spoke of any husband. Or any family at all. Only that everyone in the castle had fallen asleep and she had been rescued by the prince." (4.85)
Mrs. Berlin, like everyone else in Gemma's family, assumed the prince was her father. Spoiler alert: He was not.
Quote #6
"Did you have family who died at Chelmno, then?" Father Stashu asked.…"I don't know," Becca said. "I came here to find that out. About my family." (22.89-22.90)
Becca's quest to learn about Gemma's past isn't just about her promise to her grandmother. It's about something she needs to learn for herself.
Quote #7
If you had asked Josef Potocki to describe himself before he entered Sachenhausen, he would have said: "I am a Pole educated in Cambridge, a poet and a playwright, a member of the minor aristocracy, a man of literate tastes, master of five languages…and a gourmet cook." He would never have mentioned sexual preferences....After Sachenhausen he would have said, "I am a fag." (26.14-26.15)
For Josef, the war wasn't just about the way in which he was treated by other people. It changed his very sense of self.
Quote #8
"I am with child," she said. "And I will not let it die." So they forged papers for her in the name of Eve Potocki, and Josef gave her his stepfather's ring and his passport photograph in case she needed further corroboration. She would be a Polish princess traveling incognito, he told her. (30.55)
Polish princess traveling incognito sounds a lot better than refugee from the Holocaust. No wonder Gemma was so into the whole "Briar Rose" thing.
Quote #9
"Do you want your ring back?" Becca asked. "Or your photograph?" "Oh no. I gave it to her as corroboration for her story. And now it belongs to you for yours." (32.45)
Later, Becca wears the ring on a chain around her neck. Clearly she agrees with Josef that it's an important part of her own story. Or she just liked it as a fashion statement.
Quote #10
For the first time she realized that she did not really know how Eve became Gitl, or if Gitl had been her grandmother's real name. (32.65)
One of the neat tricks of the book is that even though the entire plot is about figuring out who Gemma really was, Becca is still missing a lot of answers at the end. We're still betting on Rumpelstiltskin.