Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York’s Lower East Side, to Seattle’s Jazz District, and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia. All of the qualities readers love in Amy Bloom’s work–her humor and wit, her elegant and irreverent language, her unflinching understanding of passion and the human heart–come together in the embrace of this brilliant novel, which is at once heartbreaking, romantic, and completely unforgettable.
As a reader of all things Jewish, I enjoyed this breezy flight between scholastic non-fiction. For a change, I highly recommend, "Yiddishe Mamas:The Truth About the Jewish Mother." Though non-fiction, as often happens, this superb, entertaining study is actually more romantic and passionate than fiction!
writes,
I've read romance novels with more realism than this book! It is an insult to all of the russian immigrants who struggled with everyday lives of boring survival to propel this character from one unrealistic peril to the other. Real immigrants might not have had such a compelling storyline, but this character goes from one bad experience to the other in an almost comical way. There are several events in the book that just happen so the story can move to a new debasement for the main character - being selected from a crowd of girls, the seamstress job advertised is a cover for a father/son deception -- and the worst -- going out the wrong door of a train station and ending up in depths of prostitution! Please!
writes,
I found this novel hypnotic, the writing, mesmerizing. This is the kind of read that descends around you before you know it, cloaking you in a deep understanding of both the character and the environment. I loved it. There was nothing I found even slightly "soft porn" here as other reviews have exclaimed with horror! On the contrary, all passages that deal with sex are sparse, fluid and brief, adding a starkness to the humanity of the characters involved and helping to define the reality of their lives. Gorgeous writing!
