Away

Starred review from June 18, 2007
Life is no party for Lillian Leyb, the 22-year-old Jewish immigrant protagonist of Bloom’s outstanding fifth novel: her husband and parents were killed in a Russian pogrom, and the same violent episode separated her from her three-year-old daughter, Sophie. Arriving in New York in 1924, Lillian dreams of Sophie, and after five weeks in America, barely speaking English, she outmaneuvers a line of applicants for a seamstress job at the Goldfadn Yiddish Theatre, where she becomes the mistress of both handsome lead actor Meyer Burstein and his very connected father, Reuben. Her only friend in New York, tailor/actor/playwright Yaakov Shimmelman, gives her a thesaurus and coaches her on American culture. In a last, loving, gesture after receiving word that Sophie is living in Siberia, Yaakov secures Lillian passage out of New York to begin her quest to find Sophie. The journey—through Chicago by train, into Seattle’s African-American underworld and across the Alaskan wilderness—elevates Bloom’s novel from familiar immigrant chronicle to sweeping saga of endurance and rebirth. Encompassing prison, prostitution and poetry, Yiddish humor and Yukon settings, Bloom’s tale offers linguistic twists, startling imagery, sharp wit and a compelling vision of the past. Bloom has created an extraordinary range of characters, settings and emotions. Absolutely stunning.

May 15, 2007
Imagine Homer'sOdyssey set in 1924 New York City, with Odysseus a 22-year-old woman who escaped the Russian pogroms only to try to make her way back in search of the daughter she left behind. Lillian Leyb arrives at the home of her cousin Frieda to begin her new life in America. She meets Yiddish theater impresario Reuben Burstein, his actor son, Meyer, and Reuben's friend, Yaakov Shimmelman, and the three men are instrumental to her education. Lillian becomes romantically involved with both Burstein men, but when she learns that her daughter, Sophie, was spared the fate of her husband and parents, the fate that causes her constant nightmares, Lillian begins a trek west, across the United States to Canada and Alaska and finally to Siberia. Her encounters broaden to include other men, a Seattle prostitute and her pimp, and prospectors and line operators along the Telegraph Trail. In earthy, less-than-genteel language, Bloom (Normal ) draws a picture of a no-longer-innocent abroad whose mother-love never diminishes despite the hardships she endures. Bloom reveals the fates of all those Lillian leaves behind, and this knowledge is satisfying, even as Lillian trudges onward. Recommended for large fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/07.]Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
With the same mesmerizing grace she brings to her award-winning short stories, Blooms new novel sweeps the reader along from page one. The story begins in Russia in the 1920s. Lillian Leyb survives the massacre of her family and runs away to New York City to live with a cousin. Ever practical, she allows herself to become the mistress of a star of the Jewish theater, andalthough shesnot happy, life is not so bad. However, when she finds out that her daughter Sophie may still be alive in Siberia, she leaves everything she has and begins the arduous journey home. She rides trains hiding in broom closets and servicing conductors. She climbs on boats and walks the Yukon trail headed for the Bering Strait and probably death. But she has to try. Full of pathos, humor, and often heartbreaking beauty, this novel tells the story of immigrant life and the caring of others without being maudlin or didactic. All characters are brilliantly and compellingly drawn.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)