Away: A Novel [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Amy Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 21, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Life is no party for Lillian Leyb, the 22-year-old Jewish immigrant protagonist of Bloom's outstanding fifth novel: her husband and parents were killed in a Russian pogrom, and the same violent episode separated her from her three-year-old daughter, Sophie. Arriving in New York in 1924, Lillian dreams of Sophie, and after five weeks in America, barely speaking English, she outmaneuvers a line of applicants for a seamstress job at the Goldfadn Yiddish Theatre, where she becomes the mistress of both handsome lead actor Meyer Burstein and his very connected father, Reuben. Her only friend in New York, tailor/actor/playwright Yaakov Shimmelman, gives her a thesaurus and coaches her on American culture. In a last, loving, gesture, Yaakov secures Lillian passage out of New York to begin her quest to find Sophie. The journey—through Chicago by train, into Seattle's African-American underworld and across the Alaskan wilderness—elevates Bloom's novel from familiar immigrant chronicle to sweeping saga of endurance and rebirth. Encompassing prison, prostitution and poetry, Yiddish humor and Yukon settings, Bloom's tale offers linguistic twists, startling imagery, sharp wit and a compelling vision of the past. Bloom has created an extraordinary range of characters, settings and emotions. Absolutely stunning. (Aug.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Inspired by the legend of Lillian Alling, a Russian immigrant who decided to walk home to Siberia in the 1920s, Amy Bloom has taken the few details known to history and fleshed them out into a brilliant, enthralling novel. Critics universally lauded Bloom's lovely prose, wit, incisive characterizations, and keen grasp of the complexities of the human heart. Her careful balance of tragedy and humor, and irony and compassion, sidesteps sentimentality, and the novel retains a Dickensian flair without ever becoming maudlin. (Only USA Today faulted its epic-like narrative.) Critics also praised Bloom's narrative trick of revealing her characters' futures as they leave the plot. Hailed as a "literary triumph" by the New York Times, "it is also a classic page-turner, one that delivers a relentlessly good read."

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (August 21, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400063566
• ISBN-13: 978-1400063567
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (161 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #373,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

AMY BLOOM is the author of two novels and two collections of short stories, one a nominee for the National Book Award and the other a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, Slate, and Salon, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award. Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude, is an exploration of the varieties of gender. A practicing psychotherapist, she lives in Connecticut and teaches at Yale University. Multiple Audie®; Award winner Barbara Rosenblat has been named a "Voice of the Twentieth Century" by AudioFile magazine. The New York Times writes,"Watch Ms. Rosenblat work...and you get the sense that even an Oscar winner might not be able to pull this off." She created the role of "Mrs. Medlock" in the Tony®; Award-winning Broadway musical The Secret Garden.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 70 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful beginning and end, problematic middle September 16, 2007

By A Reader

Format:Hardcover

I loved the beginning of this book. I loved its faint Yiddish inflections, the bravery of its main character, the world Amy Bloom places her in, the sadness driving her. But then my heart started to sink as I realized she was going to keep Lillian going, on a Homeric journey, meeting one character after another like an odyssey, never staying in one place very long, rushing too quickly forward, and giving each new character an aria about their lost love. While reading the first 50 pages, I wrote emails to friends and family telling everyone to rush to buy this...then wrote back to say never mind. Then she won me back in the last 40 pages or so. There were things I really admired in the writing and things that didn't work at all -- I'm surprised an editor didn't give Bloom better advice, particularly about the sexual element that so oddly (and off-puttingly, often) appears in every experience, and also about the way she runs off with characters instead of sticking to the point. Every character is different, but each has such similar stories to tell that I found them uninteresting (and unreal) very quickly. It's hard to tell, too, if Bloom, meant to leave the inflection behind once Lillian leaves New York, or if the writer simply lost her way. It seemed like a glaring mistake to me (if Lillian has learned the English language on her travels, if that were made clear, maybe the loss of the inflected narration would have made more sense). Still, I found chunks of this to be a page-turner and moving. But to link these adventures together into a novel doesn't hide the fact that Bloom really is a short story writer. All in all, this doesn't satisfy as a novel, though I have high regard for a lot in it.

95 of 110 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Transport Yourself into the Brain and Life of a 22 year old Russian Immigrant. September 8, 2007

By Doug

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Rather than review, I'm going to make my observations:

1. The book transported me into the life and brain of a 22 year old Russian girl who had to flee Russia to America in the 1920s. She has lived through the slaughter of her family and arrives in NYC without anything but the dress she's wearing. The author does a great job of putting you into the girl's shoes and you feel numb, desperate, your survival instincts kick in and you become ready to do what it takes to survive. Some of these things aren't what you learned to do in church, and yet they must be done.

2. The book is full of fringe characters who live and barely survive in the time. She works as a seamstress, lives with cousins, sleeps on a couch, the floor, out in the wilderness, on a cot in jail, etc., over half the book. She meets prostitutes, men running away from the law, robbers, becomes friends with a gay man, spends time in a woman's correctional facility, etc. Overall, I felt that all of these characters seemed real for the time and you really are experiencing the world of the 1920s both in NYC and Alaska.

3. There were very frank and straight forward sexual experiences along the way. The feeling that it creates is that sex was almost less complicated and straight forward then than it is now. But we're a young, inexperienced girl from Russia who is desperate, has been married and likes men. So she is very submissive and doesn't worry too much about it when approached by men she likes. I've read that these scenes were a negative by some of the other reviewers. I would say that if you can handle an R rated movie, you can handle this and that for me, it added a human dimension that made you love and understand the main character, Lillian, very well.... You have extreme sympathy for her and just shake your head at what she goes through and yet still moves positively ahead.

4. From time to time the author moves us away from our main character to tell the rest of the story of the life of one of the other main characters. It is a very satisfying, dot the i's, cross the t's experience. Each sub story finishes up within a few pages and yet we have this very fun synopsis of their life that makes us smile and doesn't leave us hanging like happens very often in this kind of book. Whatever happened to old so and so?

5. Many books have an obvious ending that we're planning on experiencing as we're moving forward. Although you will formulate a similar plan here, you will find that your plan won't be realized. And yet the ending is very satisfying as we zoom away from the main character and we have closure by the end of the book, even though the main goal of the main character is never satisfied. We're left with the feeling that life is really a series of coincidences that happen along the way and that your life, as much as you want to plan it out, is really more your ability to handle things as they happen, make adjustments and then be happy with what is given to you. Humans are resilient and capable of going through a lot of extreme situations and can still survive and even thrive.

6. Lillian has trudged on foot, boat, ship, train from NYC all the way through Alaska and up to Siberia to find her little lost daughter who may be still alive or more likely dead. But human instinct, that she-bear instinct, makes us do amazing and perhaps, stupid things. And yet the book is touching, wonderful and real. You have to wonder if some of the things she goes through could have really happened, and yet, you realize, deep down, that they did happen, as horrible as they seem from our protected, pampered perspective.

If you're a little squeamish about reality, sex, etc., perhaps you shouldn't read this book. But you'd be missing a very insightful and wonderful experience. Read more ›

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Swept Away September 26, 2007

By Paula S. Rambo

Format:Hardcover

I have been ordering books from Amazon for years and this is the first time I have felt compelled to write a review. My choices tend to be more literary and as a 68 yr. old woman, I have never wanted to read romance novels even when I was young. My college professor sent me a list of great literature of the world when I left college and that is what I have dedicated myself to read.

However! I happened upon Away by Amy Bloom just by chance and I have been swept away by adventure, romance and literature all in one book. Do not be fooled into thinking this is just for women, it isn't. It is the first book that I have had trouble laying down at night in a long time.

I have now ordered two of her books of short stories and can't wait to explore more of her writing.

Paula Rambo

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Did NOT take me AWAY September 19, 2007

By P. Morris

Format:Hardcover

This book did not hold my interest at all. I had received it as an early review and wondered what I missed upon reading so many positive comments during the initial 'push' of this book. I wondered if I read the same book as everyone else. Glad to see I'm not the only one with this opinion...

This novel portrays the lengths a person would go through when there is a strong enough motivation. Unfortunately, it was difficult for me to get through as I really had a hard time caring about the protagonist, Lillian Leyb. The story had a base which should have made you care ...and it did in the beginning. Lillian witnesses her entire family being murdered during a horrible Russian pogrom. The reader is not given any background on the actual event ...only in nightmares is the night retold. The daughter she tried to hide is believed to be dead along with her other family members. With no future in Russia, Lillian comes to America to start a new life with the help of a cousin already in New York.

Upon Lillian's arrival to New York you start to see the pattern her life takes when faced with different challenges ...she rises to them and accepts them for what they are ...a means to continue forward. However, for me this is where I start to become less interested in Lillian. At the point she is given the news that her daughter may still be alive, I had hoped to see Lillian become more vulnerable, allowing the reader to empathize with her as she begins her journey to find her daughter. Instead it felt as though Lillian is very one-dimensional. She is the vehicle used to introduce us to some interesting supporting characters. For many of these characters, you were given a summary of their life after Lillian has walked out of it. As the story ...and supporting characters...... progressed, I began looking forward to the summary of Lillian's life...just to be done. Read more ›