Synopses & Reviews
Edges is set in a pre-1967 Israel, during the Cold War. Liana Barish is fourteen years old when the suicide of her American father forces her to return with her sister and mother to Jerusalem where her mother was born and grew up. Liana's family were once members of the 1940's Haganah and are now living among the complex tensions of Israel's modernization and expansion. Liana learns about her mother's childhood in the old city, her tragic uncle. With her young lover she lives in the Palestinian world beyond Jerusalem's border. She grows away from her intense relationship with her mother into a womanhood formed by the boundary-less spaces of a lost geography and people.
Review
"Edges is an elegantly written, moving novel that has a lot to
say about love, identity, history and the meaning of nationality. The
book is worth reading alone for its superb language, but it is gripping
and unforgettable as well in its story telling and evocation of place
and emotions. It is a wonderful novel by an author with an accomplished
voice and style, one well deserving a wide and receptive audience." Oscar Hijuelos, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning novel, The
Mambo King Sings Songs of Love
Review
"This is an intimate and compelling portrait of ordinary people
caught in an extraordinary time and place. This first publication from
Glad Day Books, Grace Paley's new imprint, is a promising debut." Robert Gray, author of Publisher's Marketplace and Fresh Eyes
Review
"Ms. Skolkin-Smith's first novel is a captivating story giving the
reader a view into a land and culture of another time...This slim novel
has wonderful images and evocative writing. It is a novel about
coming-of-age and about family and love. I imagine it is one that will
stay with me for a long time." Bookgirl Nightstand
Review
"The poetry of the girl's sexual awakening ripples through many
pages, softening the fierce realities of the conflict between Arab and
Jew. The pages evoke as well the memories of a shared land, and the
mother's childhood growing up in an old Jerusalem before the city was
separated by physical barriers, the religious, cultural, divide between
Arab and Jew easier to bridge. Edges is a powerful evocation of lost
worlds which it is a joy to wander back into." Mark Mirsky, Fiction Magazine
Review
"Skolkin's brilliant debut novel is a hypnotic meditation on the
ever-changing boundaries of love and need." Caroline Leavitt, author of Girls in Trouble and Coming Back To Me
Review
"Edges is an elegant and moving novel. A provocative debut." Katharine Weber, author of The Music Lesson and Little Women
Review
"Skolkin-Smith, in clear, burnished prose, fuses personal and
political rifts into an exhilirating debut novel." Philip Graham, Director, Creative Writing Program, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Synopsis
Edges is a Jewish Book Council Selection published by Grace Paley's "Glad Day Books."
Synopsis
Edges takes the reader to an Israel in 1963, before high walls formed a border, when, instead, metal wires hung "like hosiery lines" across the land. Liana Barish is fourteen years old when the suicide of her American father forces her mother, mourning, in despair back to her family to Jerusalem where she grew up. For Liana it is the place where the powerful interdependence of mother and daughter physical and spiritual ends. It is the place of her sexual
awakening.
About the Author
Born in Manhattan in 1952, Leora spent her childhood between New
York and Israel, traveling with her family to her mother's birthplace
in old Jerusalem every three years. She has been published in Persea:
An International Review and the Sarah Lawrence Review. The recipient of
grants from The Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State
Council on the Arts, and P.E.N. American Center, she has also developed
and directed writing programs for the mentally ill in eight major
psychiatric hospitals. In the last few years she was co-founder of The
Emmett Till/Anne Frank program, a multicultural educational initiative
for Afro-American and Jewish youth in Brooklyn. Leora holds a BA and
MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. This is her first published
full-length novel.