Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"An engaging and moving exploration of love: mother-love, romantic live, love of country....Away is a melancholy Irish ballad sung on foreign soil, its words and music all the sweeter for being heard so far away from home." The Washington Post Book World
Review
"Once in a great while, a work of art...will register in the chest cavity, producing an ache of recognition and pleasure. Away...is such a book....With so much of contemporary fiction driven on the rails of dialogue...Bloom instead builds a book out of what goes unsaid but is vividly understood." Cleveland Plain Dealer
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