Kricorian, Nancy. Dreams of bread and fire.

KRICORIAN, Nancy. Dreams of bread and fire. Grove Press. 231p. c2003. 0-8021-4123-4. $13.00. SA

"Ani had harbored the idea that when she left for college she could make herself into a new person." But Ani can't escape her heritage, nor, in the end, does she want to. Raised by her maternal Armenian grandparents and her mother, a widow whose Jewish in-laws refused to acknowledge the marriage or the death of their son, Ani experiences all the rebuffs and anxieties of an outsider. While she notices the grandparents' circle of Armenian expatriates, she is generally oblivious to the great tragedy that brought them across the ocean and that occupies their conversations. Her Jewish heritage is closed to her. The story is told in flashbacks as Ani is going to university in Paris and serving as an au pair to a wealthy American couple to supplement her grant money. The author doesn't give much time to Ani's studies--and we have to assume that she is a good student, or she wouldn't be in Paris in the first place. Her emotional growth is the stuff of this novel. She has left the US enamored of a wealthy New England student who, as the reader well knows, is not worthy of her. She makes interesting connections, but can't stop thinking about the love across the sea. A chance meeting with a childhood friend, an Armenian American, becomes central to her European stay and changes her in ways that are still not resolved at the end of the book. The friend is not who he appears to be, perhaps a terrorist avenging the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks in the years during and after WW I. When Ani returns to the US to finish her studies she has a different notion of who she is, and what she may become.

Unlike Three Apples Fell From Heaven (reviewed in KLIATT in July 2002), the Armenian genocide is not central to the story, but it has an enormous impact on the central character. This is essentially a coming-of-age novel, wrapped around the conflicts of a young girl who finds that new knowledge brings a whole new set of questions. Ani's final act, an improbable theft, leaves the reader wondering if there is going to be a sequel.

S--Recommended for senior high school students.

A--Recommended for advanced students and adults. This code will help librarians and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.

Penelope Power, Libn., Garrison Forest Sch., Owings Mills, MD