cover image Taking the Heat

Taking the Heat

Eugenia Zukerman. Simon & Schuster, $18.45 (301pp) ISBN 978-0-671-70874-0

Although she gets out of the kitchen, Nora Watterman still takes the heat in this absorbing drama of passion, love, loss and redemption. Abandoning a promising career as a flutist at age 19, Nora married TV news producer Ben Watterman and soon delivered their son Nicky. Nearly 20 years later, seemingly content with her life as housewife in a New York suburb, Nora, who plays the flute with amateur groups, falls into a precipitous affair, which she ends when Ben finds out. Her attempts to repair their marriage explode with Nicky's sudden death; devastated, she goes to live with her father in an Arizona retirement village where she hears tantalizing secrets about her mother--dead since Nora was 10--who survived Auschwitz as a child. Seizing a chance to play with an orchestra in Poland, Nora confronts anti-Semitism for the first time, has a healing encounter with a young man, learns more about her mother and returns home nearly emotionally restored to a surprise that offers promise of further growth. A flutist herself, Zukerman ( Deception Cadence ) plays the melody of her tale (particularly the love scenes) with a light, sure touch, at the same time masterfully orchestrating her well-placed plot, its credible, feeling characters and authentic settings from New York to Arizona to Cracow. (Mar.)