Arkin, Frieda 1917-

PERSONAL:

Born September 4, 1917, in Brooklyn, NY; daughter of Chaim (a merchant) and Anna Weitzman; married, 1946 (husband deceased); children: Thomas Edward, Constance Louise. Education: Attended Juilliard School of Music, 1936-37, and University of Missouri, 1937-38; University of Chicago, B.A., 1940; Columbia University, M.A., 1947.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ipswich, MA. Agent—Veritas Literary Agency, 1157 Valencia St., Ste. 4, San Francisco, CA 94110.

CAREER:

Lecturer in anthropology, Hofstra College (now Hofstra University), Hempstead, NY, summer, 1947; lecturer in physical anthropology, Hunter College (now Hunter College of the City University of New York), New York, NY, 1947-54.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fiction honors, Massachusetts Book Awards, 2006, for Hedwig and Berti.

WRITINGS:

The Cook's Companion: A Dictionary of Culinary Tips and Terms, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1968.

The Dorp (novel), Dial (New York, NY), 1969.

Kitchen Wisdom, Holt (New York, NY), 1977.

Soup Wisdom, Holt (New York, NY), 1982.

More Kitchen Wisdom, Holt (New York, NY), 1982.

The Essential Kitchen Gardener, illustrations by Constance Arkin del Nero, Holt (New York, NY), 1990.

Hedwig and Berti (novel), Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Short stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories 1962, edited by Martha Foley and David Burnett, Houghton, 1962, and Best American Short Stories 1964, edited by Martha Foley and David Burnett, Houghton, 1964. Contributor of short stories to numerous literary periodicals, including Yale Review, New Mexico Quarterly, Colorado Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, Transatlantic Review, and Massachusetts Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Frieda Arkin is the author of four books dealing with cooking tips and techniques. She offered CA this explanation of her feelings behind writing The Cook's Companion: A Dictionary of Culinary Tips and Terms, Kitchen Wisdom, Soup Wisdom, and More Kitchen Wisdom "The need to eat is, in part, what has driven me to writing. The joy of eating and a love of cooking is what has driven me to include cookbooks among my writings. Torn between the typewriter and the kitchen stove, I find that imagination is a common attribute of the proper employment of both."

Besides her books on cooking, Arkin has penned numerous short stories and two novels, the first of which is titled The Dorp. Arkin's novel looks at the lives and trials of the citizens of Dorp, a small, rural town in upstate New York. "[Arkin] roams the Dorp, as it's colloquially known," explained Muriel Haynes in the Saturday Review, "as she would explore a museum rich in specimens … to garner an arbitrary selection of human foibles, quirks and crotchets. Her quarry is the endearing eccentricity that, in legend at least, comes to fullest ripening in the climate of the small town."

A number of critics have praised Arkin's debut novel for the depth of its setting and characters. Pauline J. Earl declared in Best Sellers: "Frieda Arkin is amazing! She has taken a little town in upstate New York and written of it and its people in such explicit detail that the reader cannot help but feel he is vacationing there and visualizing the entire setting himself." Earl continued: "The people there are diverse and eccentric and Miss Arkin's pen portrays them all so vividly." B.J. Mitchell remarked in Library Journal that Arkin has a talent for making "each character [come] alive." Martin Levin commented in the New York Times Book Review that "Arkin takes a delight in the humanity of her characters that gives her … first novel a refreshing point of view."

Arkin once shared with CA these thoughts related to writing fiction: "Thornton Wilder, during the fifteen years before his death, generously gave me much valuable critical advice. I am enormously indebted to him. I am indebted also to Martha Foley, a woman of astute literary judgment. I started writing fiction very late in life, at a time when most writers are at the peak of their powers. I run panting."

Despite her love of writing fiction, Arkin did not write another novel until thirty-five years after publication of The Dorp. Arkin's second novel, Hedwig and Berti, appeared on bookshelves in 2005 and received widespread praise among critics. The novel tells the story of the married couple Hedwig and Berti, first cousins who have escaped the Nazi genocide by fleeing to London. Hedwig is blond, statuesque, and beautiful. Enamored with her family's history, she is in denial about what is happening in Germany. While living in London, she eventually gives birth to Gerda, a difficult child who turns out to be a musical prodigy. As for Berti, he is so mild-mannered that he is completely overshadowed by his wife.

Later, both Hedwig and Berti end up in Kansas, where Hedwig is looked upon as a goddess by the boys in the frat house where she cooks and Berti enjoys the respect he earns as a night clerk in a Kansas bordello. Their happy lives, however, are soon made more difficult by the arrival of the depressed Gerda, whose self-loathing has stiffened her fingers so that she can no longer play piano. "Arkin's ear for her characters' emotional dissonance is part of what makes this novel so satisfying, and so unnerving," wrote Alida Becker in the New York Times Book Review. In a review for Booklist, Allison Block highlighted the novel's "endearingly odd characters and lively blend of light and dark humor." A reviewer writing in Publishers Weekly commented: "The book is infused with the keen ache of loss," and a Kirkus Reviews contributor concluded that Hedwig and Berti is "a bravura encore worth the wait."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Best Sellers, September 15, 1969, Pauline J. Earl, review of The Dorp, p. 213.

Booklist, December 1, 2004, Allison Block, review of Hedwig and Berti, p. 634.

Boston Globe, August 4, 2005, James Sullivan, "Masterpiece Was Decades in the Making," profile of author and discussion of Hedwig and Berti.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2004, review of Hedwig and Berti, p. 1059; December 15, 2005, "We at Kirkus Reviews Are Proud to Present the Best Books of 2005," p. S3.

Library Journal, July, 1969, B.J. Mitchell, review of The Dorp, p. 2637.

New York Times Book Review, August 24, 1969, Martin Levin, review of The Dorp, p. 26; March 13, 2005, Alida Becker, review of Hedwig and Berti, p. 31.

New York Times, September 2, 1969, review of The Dorp, p. 45.

Publishers Weekly, March 23, 1990, review of The Essential Kitchen Gardener, p. 76; November 22, 2004, review of Hedwig and Berti, p. 38.

Saturday Review, August 30, 1969, Muriel Haynes, review of The Dorp, p. 26.