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:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
Chicken Soup Potboiler:
I began reading this book with high hopes but somewhere after Lillian decides to leave the Yiddish theater and to return to Siberia, I began to sense that this adventure story was a hoax. I followed Lillian through each separate adventure feeling as if I were watching a serialized potboiler. I stopped believing in the character and felt the author plodding along, putting her main character into one absurd situation after another, leaning heavily on sex and violence to keep the narrative moving. I cannot say... more info
Away by Amy Bloom 4 - 4.5 Stars:
Where to begin...
One day, when I grow up, I want to be as strong-willed as Lillian, the main character. To be driven by such a deep love and will to travel in the 1920s across America, through Alaska, to find your way home... Lillian is a young immigrant who moves to America (NYC, from Russia, to find a better life and make a new start after her family brutally murdered. During this horrible time in her life, she begs her daughter to hide. After the tragedy she can not find her daughter. After... more info
There's More to Every Story:
"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." I pulled this quote out of the book because it really embodied the soul of Lillian's story. It's as though we're skating on a frozen lake -- we see Lillian and the other characters as they move through the pages of the story and we hear some of their thoughts. The emotional turmoil and the thoughts too dark or tragic to be voiced, however, are left just under the... more info
vulgar and disgusting:
I was very disgusted with this book. It was the first book I read by Amy Bloom and it will be the last. My book club picked this book as our book for November from a Book club companion guide we receive from Random House readers circle. Everything they had to say about the book made it seem like a good choice, but one thing you don't know about a book until you start to read it is the language, tone, and sexuality of the book. I think this book was written using very vulgar language and describing sexually... more info
