cover image Becky Bernstein Goes Berlin

Becky Bernstein Goes Berlin

Holly-Jane Rahlens. Arcade Publishing, $22.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-1-55970-381-9

""This is a story about clutter and calories."" So writes expatriate standup performer Rahlens in the epilogue to her jaunty but muddled novel of an American woman reaching midlife in Berlin. The narrator (the brash Becky Bernstein of the title) doesn't lie: this is a story about clutter and calories--and precious little else. There is a plot of sorts: Becky, who makes her living as hostess on a local talk show, has been asked to write a national program on post-reunification Germany. During a vacation spent fretting about the program, dieting and tidying her apartment, she comes across various memory triggers, among them a flower-power dress, cheerleader pompoms and a Dictaphone. Each occasions a moment of self-analysis: we learn at random of her swindler father, of her many disappointing and vapid love affairs and of snooty, nostalgic returns to her native New York (""I remembered Fifth Avenue before it became an open air flea market, an outdoor five-and-ten""). During her six-week siege on fat and disarray, no one in her life makes more than a cameo appearance. Rahlens seems to find wiseacre Becky entertaining enough on her own. Readers are unlikely to be so indulgent. (July)