<DIV>"Growing old is one of the most surprising things that has happened to her. She hadn't given it any thought. Then one day, she was eighty-five. Not just old, but an object of derision, pity. Is there any use explaining that she is still herself?albeit a slower, achier, creakier version of the original?"<BR>?from <I>Being Esther</I><BR><BR><I>Being Esther</I> intimately explores the interior consciousness of an elderly Jewish woman who lives as much in the past as in the present.<br><BR>Whereas the past includes pleasant memories of family, love and lust, the happy confines of marriage, and the rare occasions to break those confines?like taking a part-time job as a bookseller at Kroch's & Brentano's?the present includes crossing out the names of the deceased in a phonebook, fending off attempts by her daughter to move into assisted living, daily check-ins with a neighbor, and the occasional outing. Not prone to self-pity, Esther is at moments lucid and then suddenly lost in a world which has disappeared along with many who had inhabited it.<BR><BR>Miriam Karmel's fiction debut brings understanding and tremendous empathy to the character of Esther Lustig, a woman who readers will not soon forget.<BR></DIV>