Customer Reviews

The Division Street Princess: A Memoir

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After not being able to put down The Division Street Princess until I finished reading it, I thought I was done with it... but clearly the book is not done with me. I cannot stop thinking about it. Elaine Shapiro Soloway's words evoke pictures that exist in my head even more vividly than the photos she shares in her book. They are nostalgic, happy, bittersweet, and frightening. This book is a real keeper so buy 2 copies; you will want to share it with everyone you know!

I was drawn into this wonderful book by the details of daily life in 1942 as seen, in the first pages, through the eyes of a four-year-old child. And I stayed with delight to absorb that little girl's increasingly acute awareness of family, friends, neighbors, and the urban neighborhood itself, as she grew into her early teens. The way in which the reader comes to know and ultimately care deeply about the parents, Min and Irv Shapiro, and the future of the family is especially satisfying. While the time and the place are unique, I believe that everyone of any age will find something familiar in this lovely memoir.

I am not a Soloway but I am crazy about this book! Elaine Soloway transports us to an urban Chicago neighborhood in the 1940s and takes us on a journey through her unique Jewish childhood. I loved every Yiddish inflection, every Chicago reference, and every stop in this remarkable El ride through Elaine's loving, poignant, and often challenging world. This book belongs on a shelf with the likes of Vivian Gornick, Annie Dillard, Anne Roiphe, and Elizabeth Ehrlich. Reading about the amazing woman Soloway became in daughter Jill's book "Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants," I can only hope that Elaine is sequestered in her Chicago home busily working on the sequel to "The Division Street Princess."

I read Divison Street Princess and loved every page. SOloway writes wonderfully, and evokes a certain America magically, she has created a very important memoir.

I feel the book is so important in Americana culture and Jewish-Americana cultural archives, that the book should eventually be entered onto an online Internet site, free of charge, so that readers in the future, and I mean the FUTURE, like 500 years from now, can also read this moving memoir! Also, this would make a great movie in the Barry Levinson vein of Hollywoodiana. The murder of the little girl and the arrest of the murderer would make a fantastic 1950s Chicago movie story, with Soloway's memoir bookending the movie on both sides.

The book brought back so many memories from the old neichborhood. It is a good book for all ages.

A unique, moving account of a young girl growing up amid the rich history of family customs and relationships.

As a child of that era, I loved the book, as it brought back my own forgotten memories.

Okay, I am elaine's first daughter, so I may be a little prejudiced on her greatness, but I am compelled to write how wonderful this book is. It gives a real feel for how families not only survived in the jewish ghettos of chicago, but how they thrived--and how the struggle of keeping the family in the rhythm of life,triumphs over poverty and fear. My mom could never really describe to me in full what she went through as a girl, until now--what a gift to me, and to all daughters and sons of her generation.

The Division Street Princess breathes emotion from its pages. A sweet and often bittersweet story set in the 1940s and early 1950s that follows the childhood of its author as she recounts life in a prominently Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. Not sugar-coated like many memoirs, not deathly depressing like Angela's Ashes, The Division Street Princess strikes a balance that rings true. Her parents' imperfect marriage, the imperfect truth of life and failings of men, women, and ideals, and an undying devotion to family and love - we see all of this and how they impact the life of a child steeped in her own self-doubt, naive views, dreams and hopes. The writing made this reader connect with her, and feel the real and historic events that are part of this tale (with fascinting photos provided) that intersected with her life. Without a soapbox, The Division Street Princess gently coaxes us to understand what love and devotion are all about, even when we realize that the people we love fall far short of what our childhood eyes had once envisioned. In bits and pieces, naivete falls away, and we learn the real reasons why we love the people around us. A beautiful, lasting tale crafted by talented hands.

Elaine Soloway completely overwhelmed me with emotion with The Division Street Princess. This book is timeless and touched on every aspect of life with which people are faced, including marriage, mother-daughter relationships, father-daughter relationships, friendships, immigrant issues, brother-sister relationships, extended family dynamics, and more difficult issues like sexual abuse. This book has it all and forced me to think about my own life and how I want to move forward as a wife, mother, daughter and friend. This book will forever have an imprint on my heart and in my mind. Thank you, Elaine Soloway, for sharing your story.

I just finished my advance copy of this book and was blown away. Okay, maybe you can tell from my name that it was written by my mother, but that's not why I was so moved. The writing is so stunning, evocative, both crisp and warm, dare I say, delicious. I could smell every drop of chicken fat, and hear the scratchy tunes and news reports on the radio, see and feel and literally live the era in 1940's Chicago on fabled Division Street.

Soloway (aka my mom!) takes us with as she returns to the world of her youth-- and that of many Jews of her generation-- and paints such a readable portrait that, even if she weren't a Soloway, I would be kvelling like this.

If you liked my book, Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, and you want to know the story behind the story, read this one. If you haven't read my book, read my mom's first, and then when you're done, go buy mine.