Goldstein, Yael 1978-

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Goldstein, Yael 1978-

PERSONAL:

Born 1978; daughter of Rebecca Goldstein (a professor and writer). Education: Harvard University, B.A., 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Princeton, NJ. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Overture: A Novel, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals and anthologies, including Who We Are: On Being (and Not Being) a Jewish American Writer, 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Overture: A Novel, author Yael Goldstein portrays one of the most common literary themes—mother-daughter relationships—in a new guise. Tasha Darsky, the protagonist of the novel, is a world-famous violinist who refocuses her career ambitions for her composer lover. Meanwhile, her daughter Alex is demonstrating a genius for composition which Tasha also once had, but gave up. Goldstein tells her tale of musical competition and tortured love through an intricate series of flashbacks. As the author noted on her Web site, she was inspired to write the novel not only through a love for the film Amadeus, but also through the works of German author Thomas Mann and her own relationship with her writer mother. Goldstein explained: "I started the book the summer after I graduated college; I was 22-years-old, and very much not a mother, so in writing the book I drew a lot on my observations of my mother's experience raising my sister and me, though I also drew on my own feelings about motherhood, and, of course, on imagination."

For Ellen Loughran, writing in Booklist, Overture was a "not-quite-bravura performance—but nevertheless a finely wrought, promising debut." USA Today contributor Elysa Gardner termed the novel "basically chick lit for the culturally curious." A Publishers Weekly contributor noted: "Goldstein's novel is packed with the authentic detail of a musician's life; however, her workaday prose does little to bring life to her characters." No such reservations were evinced by New York Times Book Review critic Gideon Lewis-Kraus, who observed: "To her credit, Goldstein has eschewed the fashionable archness typical of many young writers, and the relationships she has created are genuinely affecting and complex." Further praise came from a Kirkus Reviews critic who felt that Overture was a "highly refined tale of love among musical geniuses," and from Library Journal reviewer Susanne Wells, who called the novel an "impressive debut."