Word: miriam
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Saul's obsessive attention to Eliza comes at the expense of her older brother Aaron, who is being bullied at school and who feels his own religious aspirations, closely modeled on his father's, unfulfilled. And then there is Miriam, the Naumann wife and mother, whose already pronounced remoteness from her husband and children grows apace while Eliza and Saul are sequestered in his study, poring over dictionaries. Miriam too is on a spiritual quest, although it oddly manifests itself first in shoplifting and then in breaking into and robbing houses...
...main characters, tracing the adventures of each one over the year or so covered in the novel. This technique emphasizes the essential isolation of each family member, how a genteel unwillingness to cause scenes or make hurtful comments has atrophied into an inability to say anything truthful at all. Miriam is simply baffled by her children; Saul's parental love is directed more at what they can become than at the needy young people they happen to be. Although she craves victories, Eliza also begins to feel that winning spelling bees is a necessary precondition to her family's happiness...
...Miriam guiltily brings Ronnee back with her to Houston, much to the surprise of her husband, who meets them at the airport. Her mother's condition has improved, but Ronnee's presence poses a critical question for Miriam: how to introduce a daughter, and one of mixed race besides, of whom none of her friends have ever heard...
...situation is an intriguing one rendered all the more so by Brown's skillful and sympathetic handling of her two central characters. Miriam is well meaning almost to a fault; her idealism sometimes shades into a simulacrum of selfishness, an unwillingness to credit other people with feelings as pure as her own. And Ronnee, who imagines herself a cool, calculating gold digger, is actually a vulnerable young woman burdened by society with conflicting identities. "Yeah, I know," she says at one point. "Nothing is black and white. Except me. I'm black and white...
...Miriam Nelson and Tufts University colleagues proved that lifting weights doesn't just build muscles. It also strengthens brittle bones and reduces osteoporosis risk in older women. Ever since, she's been crusading to reacquaint women with their biceps, triceps and hamstrings. "We value our skin, breasts and hair," Nelson says. "But we don't value our muscles as much as we should...