Away: A Novel - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
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.

Customer Reviews: Read 109 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Stay Away September 24, 2007
74 out of 98 found this review helpful

What a promising first 60 pages. We have an interesting character (Lillian) full of resolve and moral complexity, determined to eke out a life in New York. Then she hears that her daughter, whom she'd left for dead in a Russian pogrom, is alive and well in....Siberia. Suddenly this interesting character becomes a total idiot. Suddenly she decides that she needs to travel across the U.S. with no money, no plan, no friends, to reach Siberia in the hope of searching somewhere in that vast frozen wasteland (Where? Who knows?) for a little girl whom she'd hardly recognize anymore and who'd hardly recognize her. Not even a writer as talented as Bloom can pull this off. Lillian becomes utterly flattened as a character. Her inner life totally disappears. All the complexity is gone. What we have instead is a cardboard cutout (the Resolute Mom) who meets other cardboard cutouts on an utterly tiresome, completely unbelievable, and often ridiculous trek. The similes strain toward profundity but achieve only mundane cliche ("as gone as gone could be"), which only reveals the shallowness that the book inhabits. Bloom's writing is otherwise fine, but the overall effect, rather than gaining emotional force, left this reader feeling cheated and annoyed.

5 out of 5 stars

Epic storytelling with a wonderful leading lady! August 22, 2007
61 out of 69 found this review helpful

I had never read this author before but through a special promotion I received an advance copy of this novel (this did not influence my feelings for the book, but I do think it should be fully disclosed). This is an extraordinary story of a young woman who comes to America from Russia after her family is destroyed. Young Lillian Leyb arrives in 1920's New York City and is taken in by a famous impresario and his movie star son. Lillian however, gets news about her daughter Sophie. This chain of events sends Lillian on a trip across America all the way to Alaska!Lillian's pluck and guile serve her well in this odyssey, of which Bloom paints a surprising picture of 1920's America. I won't ruin the story but the plot is epic and the characters jump to life, especially Lillian who is one of my favorite female literary characters since Molly Mendoza of "Across the High Lonesome." I highly recommend "Away!" And alsoAcross the High Lonesome for an epic story set in the modern American west.

5 out of 5 stars

Transport Yourself into the Brain and Life of a 22 year old Russian Immigrant. September 8, 2007
55 out of 64 found this review helpful

Rather than review, I'm going to make my observations:

1. The book transported me into the life and brain of a 22 year old Russian girl who had to flee Russia to America in the 1920s. She has lived through the slaughter of her family and arrives in NYC without anything but the dress she's wearing. The author does a great job of putting you into the girl's shoes and you feel numb, desperate, your survival instincts kick in and you become ready to do what it takes to survive. Some of these things aren't what you learned to do in church, and yet they must be done.

2. The book is full of fringe characters who live and barely survive in the time. She works as a seamstress, lives with cousins, sleeps on a couch, the floor, out in the wilderness, on a cot in jail, etc., over half the book. She meets prostitutes, men running away from the law, robbers, becomes friends with a gay man, spends time in a woman's correctional facility, etc. Overall, I felt that all of these characters seemed real for the time and you really are experiencing the world of the 1920s both in NYC and Alaska.

3. There were very frank and straight forward sexual experiences along the way. The feeling that it creates is that sex was almost less complicated and straight forward then than it is now. But we're a young, inexperienced girl from Russia who is desperate, has been married and likes men. So she is very submissive and doesn't worry too much about it when approached by men she likes. I've read that these scenes were a negative by some of the other reviewers. I would say that if you can handle an R rated movie, you can handle this and that for me, it added a human dimension that made you love and understand the main character, Lillian, very well. You have extreme sympathy for her and just shake your head at what she goes through and yet still moves positively ahead.

4. From time to time the author moves us away from our main character to tell the rest of the story of the life of one of the other main characters. It is a very satisfying, dot the i's, cross the t's experience. Each sub story finishes up within a few pages and yet we have this very fun synopsis of their life that makes us smile and doesn't leave us hanging like happens very often in this kind of book. Whatever happened to old so and so?

5. Many books have an obvious ending that we're planning on experiencing as we're moving forward. Although you will formulate a similar plan here, you will find that your plan won't be realized. And yet the ending is very satisfying as we zoom away from the main character and we have closure by the end of the book, even though the main goal of the main character is never satisfied. We're left with the feeling that life is really a series of coincidences that happen along the way and that your life, as much as you want to plan it out, is really more your ability to handle things as they happen, make adjustments and then be happy with what is given to you. Humans are resilient and capable of going through a lot of extreme situations and can still survive and even thrive.

6. Lillian has trudged on foot, boat, ship, train from NYC all the way through Alaska and up to Siberia to find her little lost daughter who may be still alive or more likely dead. But human instinct, that she-bear instinct, makes us do amazing and perhaps, stupid things. And yet the book is touching, wonderful and real. You have to wonder if some of the things she goes through could have really happened, and yet, you realize, deep down, that they did happen, as horrible as they seem from our protected, pampered perspective.

If you're a little squeamish about reality, sex, etc., perhaps you shouldn't read this book. But you'd be missing a very insightful and wonderful experience.

5 out of 5 stars

"The things love makes you do." August 31, 2007
34 out of 48 found this review helpful

Lillian Leyb is a woman running from her past when we first meet her in Amy Bloom's stellar new novel. Lillian has arrived in New York City in 1924, having left Turov, her home, in the wake of a massacre that saw the murders of her parents and her husband and the disappearance of her beloved young daughter, Sophie. Believing Sophie to be dead, Lillian cannot escape daily reminders of what she has lost and the terrible nightmares that plague her every night. She flees to America in a desperate bid to forget her past, and seeks to start anew with fierce ambition and determination. Within no time she has become involved with the Bursteins, Meyer and his father Reuben, wealthy theatre owners who take Lillian under their wing so long as she acts as a beard for the homosexual Meyer while privately assuming the role of Reuben's mistress. It's not a wonderful set-up, for sure, but it does afford wealth and glamour, and it allows Lillian to forget for a time who she is and where she comes from. She may have been adequately happy to spend the rest of her days allowing this scenario to play out, but suddenly Lillian receives word that Sophie may have survived after all, whisked to safety by a neighboring family that fled for Siberia during the massacre. Lillian's life is no longer about running away from her past but about attempting to retrieve part of it. As long as there is a chance that her daughter lives, Lillian will continue searching for her.

Lillian embarks on an odyssey that will take her around the world, from Turov to Manhattan, from Manhattan across the United States into Alaska, where she hopes to cross the Bering Strait into Siberia and reclaim her daughter. Her quest will throw her into some dangerous situations and she will be forced to endure countless humiliations to her already battered psyche, but with sheer willpower Lillian will carry on; the hope that she may see her daughter again is all she needs to keep on moving.

"The measure of love is not how many partings you go through but that there is always one more reunion."

In her quest, Lillian meets people who take advantage of her situation but she also makes unexpected friends who help her out and allow her to save them in turn. It is as if her force of will and hope becomes contagious, rescuing the people she touches from the brink of despair. While "Away" may not be the pure revelation that most reviews make it out to be, it is pretty darned close - making it one of those rare novels that actually deserves the hype surrounding it.

"Away" is a tender and heartbreaking odyssey, written with a loving, expert hand by Amy Bloom. I would definitely recommend it, along with Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases and Marilynne Robinson's Gilead: A Novel and Housekeeping: A Novel.

Grade: A-

1 out of 5 stars

Away to what? September 24, 2007
28 out of 35 found this review helpful

I felt I was a part of a creative writing class gone wrong, (third person narration). It is as if there are two books here. The tedious first half is filled with pages of our heroine (Lillian) who is amused at the way her life has turned once she has arrived to the shores of her new country...this is after her family is brutally murdered. The second half is an unbelieveable quest to find her daughter. This of course gives her life meaning and purpose. The author pulls at all the cliches and hands them to us as if they should mean something. By the time we are to start the journey we are tired of Lillian's self absorbed coldness, and a supposed amoral veneer that is actually all there is. There is no depth to her. It is impossible to sympathize. She arrives in the second half of the book to some kind of personal understanding of her nature.... but by then we don't care. We still don't know who she is and what she stands for. This one left me feeling like I was trapped in a bad telenovela. Epic? I hardly think so.

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