Away

Critics

• A survival instinct

  Away by Amy Bloom 240pp Granta, £10.99 In her new novel Amy Bloom, previously a sharp chronicler of contemporary sensibility, reinvents herself as a romantic chronicler of 1920s America. Her heroine, Lilian Leyb, is also a confident mistress of reinv ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• To Russia, for Love

  It’s 1924, and Lillian Leyb, from Turov, Russia, has just made her way through Ellis Island to Manhattan. Life on the Lower East Side may be tough, but wily Lillian is prepared for it. When hungry, she steals what she thinks won’t be noticed (“She bo ... (read full critics)

  nytimes published on Sat, 18 Sep 2010

1 Review

• 

  Complicated

  Young Jewish widow Lilian sets off to America to live a new life after her whole family was murdered in Russia. The novel starts as an immigration tale while Lilian becomes a mistress of a father and a son. As she's living her luxurious life in America, one day her cousin tells Lillian that her daug ... (continue)

  Young Jewish widow Lilian sets off to America to live a new life after her whole family was murdered in Russia. The novel starts as an immigration tale while Lilian becomes a mistress of a father and a son. As she's living her luxurious life in America, one day her cousin tells Lillian that her daughter Sophie still survives. Driven by the maternal instinct, Lillian starts to travel from the U.S. to Siberia to look for Sophie. And the second half of the novel is all about her adventure.

  The second half falls into bits and Bloom introduces a few characters to her readers. The narrative gets a bit complicated and a bit of a rush. There are always a million things happening but there's no psychological sketches of any of the characters. This is not an ordinary novel. Read only when you want to be challenged.

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Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Paperback 240 Pages
• ISBN-10: 1847080138
• ISBN-13: 9781847080134
• Publisher: Granta Books
• Pub date: Jun 01, 2008
• Also available as: Others

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