by Alan Weisman
|
Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World--10th Anniversary Edition by Alan Weisman |
by Diane Ackerman
|
by Geraldine Brooks
|
by Roberto Bolano
|
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
For the children of Jewish immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century, growing up American was both a fortune and a curse. A childhood free from pogroms and persecution came at the cost of a severed genealogy. Forced identity changes, destroyed documents and a reluctance to record the travails of the old country often left first-generation American Jews ignorant of their most immediate family history. Weisman (Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World), a world-traveled journalist and the son of Ukrainian Jews who fled the massacres of the Russian Civil War in 1923, began his research while on assignment in Chernobyl. This book is his effort to come to terms with the disparity between his own privileged life and his father's struggle to make his name in a new country. Weisman weaves his childhood memories with the received stories of his many aunts and uncles. He then tackles the veracity of what he calls "congenital truths" by returning to his father's birthplace of Mala Viska, a small village between Kiev and Odessa, where he tries to fill the gaps in his family's clouded history. Weisman's narrative sometimes risks becoming monotonous, as segments are weighed down by excessive detail and incongruous discourses on his research into environmental hazards in South America and an unlucky romance with an Argentine woman who shares his family name. But Weisman has a gift for language, and his personal search for family and identity will move anyone who recognizes the universality of love, loss and humanity. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In 1992, when Weisman's parents died, his aunt embraced him and his sister. "Now you're orphans, just like us," she murmured. A year later, in Chernobyl, he told a local official, "You know, my father was...from [the] Ukraine." At age 11, however, his father had fled to the United States after his father was assassinated. But was it the White Army Cossacks or the Bolsheviks (as his militantly anti-Communist father insisted) who murdered his grandfather? In this elegant memoir, Weisman ties together his complicated relationship with his oppressive father and his present job reporting on the "unprecedented societal dislocation" taking place in the Third World today. The result is remarkable, sensitive history, where the present supplies meaning to the past, and the past provides context for the present. "Displaced people create new histories, or revise old ones, to define themselves in alien settings," observes Weisman. "Family secrets can't really be keptAthe facts may dissolve away, but their consequences remain." Highly recommended.ADavid Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
› Visit Amazon's Alan Weisman Page
› Visit Amazon's Alan Weisman Page
Look Inside This Book
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
43% buy The World Without Us |
 |
43% buy the item featured on this page: An Echo in My Blood: The Search for My Family's Hidden Past |
 |
15% buy Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World--10th Anniversary Edition $11.53 |
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
|||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Listmania!
|
|
So You'd Like to...
Product Information from the Amapedia Community
Beta (What's this?)Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
Look for Similar Items by Category
- Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > Jewish
- Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > United States
- Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Journalists
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Emigration & Immigration
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Media Studies
Look for Similar Items by Subject
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. |
