If I Told You Once

Name: If I Told You Once
ISBN: 9780312267513

A Novel

Judy Budnitz

WINNER OF THE EDWARD LEWIS WALLANT AWARD

In her utterly original novel about mothers, daughters, and love, Judy Budnitz gives the traditional folktale an electrifying twist as she follows four generations of women from an Eastern European village to the tenements of an American city. Elena, born into a family ruled by a formidable mother, embarks on an epic journey to the New World, met along the way by evil, magic, and good fortune. The daughter, grand-daughter, and great-granddaughter who follow each share her special powers of observation and, often, destruction. The result is a family saga unlike any other: a hilarious, heartbreaking story of family ties that bind.

“Wonderfully wrought, with language as simple and straightforward as a fable, alive with a stunning metaphorical quality.” —New York Newsday

“Nothing less than a tour de force.” —The Forward

“Mesmerizing...This is a definite read for anyone bored by traditional tales.” —Seventeen

“A bold first novel... A powerful telling of the immigrant experience.” —The Los Angeles Times

“Splendid...If there is any complaint to be made, it is that the novel ends too soon and the reader is forced to close the covers and drift back into reality.” —San Diego Union-Tribune

About the Author

Judy Budnitz is an American novelist and short story writer whose fiction draws on Jewish immigrant history, folklore, and family memory, often blending them with magical realism. Her debut novel, If I Told You Once (1999), follows a young woman who flees a pogrom in an unnamed Eastern European country for New York. It then traces her story through four generations of her female descendants. The book is steeped in superstition, folk legend, and the evil eye, and it explores how stories, loss, and inheritance pass between mothers and daughters. It won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, which honors fiction of significance to American Jews, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction). Kirkus Reviews called it “a kind of Jewish Rashomon.”

Budnitz’s short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, and McSweeney’s. Her collections Flying Leap (1998), a New York Times Notable Book, and Nice Big American Baby (2005) pair immigrant and family themes with dark humor and the surreal. Her honors include an O. Henry Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. She has also served as a judge of the Moment Magazine–Karma Foundation Short Fiction Contest, which recognizes stories on Jewish themes.