If I Told You Once - Tapa dura

‘Judy Budnitz’s first novel is no ordinary coming-to-America story. The familiar journey from Old World to New becomes magical in her hands. You’re left with the delicious thrill of having been duped – or have you? – by a master of embellishment.’ New York Times Book Review

‘At the heart of Judy Budnitz’s startlingly imaginative first novel lies the power of stories – the stories we hear, the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we recount to our children and hope they will pass on to theirs. IF I TOLD YOU ONCE is built out of stories and driven by their ability to bind, enthrall, and occasionally sever generations within a single family.’ The San Francisco Chronicle

‘In her bold first novel... Budnitz’s story unfolds with – and never forsakes – the edifying, cocoon-like mystery of a tale from the Brothers Grimm... a powerful telling of the immigrant experience.’ Los Angeles Times

‘Budnitz’s novel cleverly blends the ghostly grimness of fairy tales with historical fact and modern urban details. The result is an artful feminist spin on the kind of magic realism popularized by I.B. Singer and Bernard Malamud.’ Baltimore Sun

‘Folk tale, fable, and contemporary novel IF I TOLD YOU ONCE is a splendid example of what can happen when all of these elements come
together in perfect harmony. What can and does happen, in fact, is a wonderfully rendered work of fiction by a talented writer. More than this, however, Judy Budnitz’ debut novel affords the reader that ever decreasing ability to become transported into the world she has created – a priceless gift from author to reader.’ The San Diego Union-Tribune

‘Judy Budnitz’s first novel, IF I TOLD YOU ONCE, is both generous and strict with itself in the right degrees... [The novel] works its fantastic moments into a narrative firmly weighted with rich, realistic detail. This makes the novel’s fancies that much more lovely, as they feed into a thoughtful exploration of how imagination can shape memory and quotidian life... an intelligent, tactful and well-paced novel. Every page is a pleasure to read, and like a matrushka doll (one of Budnitz’s favored images) reveals smaller and more intricate layers of beauty the more one takes it apart.’ Village Voice Literary Supplement

The most astonishing American literary debut of the year.

Judy Budnitz might just be the most exciting and unusual literary figure to emerge from the US literary thicket this year.

This is a truly strange and striking tale that begins in the deep, and deeply magical, European forest, in the world depicted in Chagall’s paintings and Grimms’ Fairy Tales, and proceeds to tell the story of four generations of women from one fated family.

Budnitz builds her book with wit and art somewhere in the gaps between magic realism, family saga and female bildungsroman. She marries great technical skill to quirky humour and dizzying metaphor. She has an uncanny knack for the destabilizing and indelible image, but does not abandon sense for sensibility. She is always readable, albeit strangely so. She might yet be an Americanized heir to the throne left vacant by Angela Carter.