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Away: A Novel by Amy Bloom
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Away: A Novel (edition 2007)

by Amy Bloom

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2,0621267,796 (3.46)146
Fiction. Literature. Moll Flanders in America, this epic, intimate novel follows a young Russian immigrant determined to make her way-and find her daughter-in the hip, harsh 1920s. On a morning in 1924, a young woman rises from the floor of her family's small home in Belorussia to find her parents and her husband slaughtered beside her and her infant daughter, Sophie, missing. When her aunt tells her the baby is dead, Lillian emigrates to America. She is working as a seamstress at the Yiddish Theater and enjoying cafe society when a cousin arrives and insists that her daughter is still alive-in Siberia. Lillian cannot stop dreaming of Sophie; she feels she must get to Russia, yet she can't afford the passage. Her only friend, an actor turned tailor, steals atlases from the New York Public Library and sews them into an overcoat for her. She crosses North America by rail, truck, and foot, encountering drifters, wardens, pimps, missionaries, and tattoo artists. From Dawson City, Alaska, she sets sail for Russia. She falls in love, falls in with the wrong people, leaps before she looks, hopes hard, and refuses to give up. Inspired by a true story, Away is Moll Flanders in America and Odysseus in the Jazz Age: big, wide, brilliantly imagined, unexpectedly funny, and unforgettable.… (more)
Member:FrauH
Title:Away: A Novel
Authors:Amy Bloom
Info:Random House (2007), Edition: First Edition, Paperback, 224 pages
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Away by Amy Bloom

  1. 00
    The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: Although Away's stylistically complex narrative covers more ground than The Boston Girl, both novels introduce Jewish immigrant women whose outsider status compels them to create independent lives while making sense of 20th-century American society.… (more)
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English (123)  German (2)  Dutch (1)  Norwegian (1)  All languages (127)
Showing 1-5 of 123 (next | show all)
I don't know who should get more credit-Amy Bloom or the excellent audio book reader, Barbara Rosenblatt, but it was a good reading experience, regardless. I kept imagining Bloom as a painter, making brush strokes that swept me back and forth through time. Flashing back a few years or flashing forward a few decades, she framed the story of Lillian Leyb with the stories and fates of the other characters. I didn't always admire Lillian, but I usually understood her motivations. In a weird way, it reminded me of The Color Purple-near relentless hardship and suffering, but not as a cheap plot device or there for the sole purpose of being "literary". Even so, the author was very close to taking it too far for me near the end, and if the book had ended differently, this might have been more of a rant than review, but she struck a balance right when it was needed. ( )
  Harks | Dec 17, 2022 |
Started, read 75% of book but then had enough. Depressing read about deep poverty, the chicanery and cons played on folks to get some money, the abuse of women; the crime, corruption, the violence. Just for being born and trying to survive.
  Bookish59 | Oct 25, 2022 |
Away begs the question - as a mother, how far would you go to save your child? Lillian Leyb is a Russian widow, an orphan, and a mother who has lost her child to horrible violence during a Russian pogrom. As seemingly the only survivor of her family, she makes her way to America and it is in New York City where she tries to build a better life for herself as a seamstress in a theater company. When she hears that her four year old daughter might still be alive somewhere in Siberia, Lillian risks everything to get to her. She prostitutes her body, mind, and soul to get to Sophie. Lilian learns sex can be a weapon, a coping mechanism, but also her power and her comfort.
It is one thing to say Lillian traveled to Siberia from New York, but it is quite another to see a map of her arduous journey from Manhattan to Chicago, to Fargo, to Spokane, to Vancouver and Dawson. The miles stretch out in an impossible-to-fathom line from one coast to the other. ( )
  SeriousGrace | Jun 17, 2022 |
An intensely readable combination of story, language and character. Dreamy, earthy, fascinating in historical detail of america in the 1920s. I wanted to know what would happen next in Lillian's life, and I'm glad the author tells us what happens to everyone else she meets along the way. ( )
  jennybeast | Apr 14, 2022 |
Okay for an airport book; lightweight fiction with interesting historic context, but a plot straight out of contemporary soap opera. ( )
  oatleyr | Aug 22, 2020 |
Showing 1-5 of 123 (next | show all)
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Epigraph
Dedication
For my family
First words
It is always like this: The best parties are made by people in trouble.
Quotations
People who tell you the truth right away are people who aren't afraid of you, and that's either good news, because they're too stupid to be afraid, or very bad news, becasue they know that the only person who needs to be afraid is you.
Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Fiction. Literature. Moll Flanders in America, this epic, intimate novel follows a young Russian immigrant determined to make her way-and find her daughter-in the hip, harsh 1920s. On a morning in 1924, a young woman rises from the floor of her family's small home in Belorussia to find her parents and her husband slaughtered beside her and her infant daughter, Sophie, missing. When her aunt tells her the baby is dead, Lillian emigrates to America. She is working as a seamstress at the Yiddish Theater and enjoying cafe society when a cousin arrives and insists that her daughter is still alive-in Siberia. Lillian cannot stop dreaming of Sophie; she feels she must get to Russia, yet she can't afford the passage. Her only friend, an actor turned tailor, steals atlases from the New York Public Library and sews them into an overcoat for her. She crosses North America by rail, truck, and foot, encountering drifters, wardens, pimps, missionaries, and tattoo artists. From Dawson City, Alaska, she sets sail for Russia. She falls in love, falls in with the wrong people, leaps before she looks, hopes hard, and refuses to give up. Inspired by a true story, Away is Moll Flanders in America and Odysseus in the Jazz Age: big, wide, brilliantly imagined, unexpectedly funny, and unforgettable.

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HighBridge

2 editions of this book were published by HighBridge.

Editions: 1598875213, 1615730427

HighBridge Audio

An edition of this book was published by HighBridge Audio.

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