Away | 
 enlarge | Author: Amy Bloom
Creator: Barbara Rosenblat
Publisher: HighBridge Company
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $16.78
You Save: $18.17 (52%)
New (24) Used (9) from $16.78
Avg. Customer Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 241940
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 7
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.9 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1598875213
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781598875218
ASIN: 1598875213
Publication Date: August 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Condition: New, unused book.; bkcs
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Product Description
Moll Flanders in America, this epic, intimate novel follows a young Russian immigrant determined to make her way—and find her daughter—in the hip, harsh 1920s.
On a morning in 1924, a young woman rises from the floor of her family's small home in Belorussia to find her parents and her husband slaughtered beside her and her infant daughter, Sophie, missing. When her aunt tells her the baby is dead, Lillian emigrates to America. She is working as a seamstress at the Yiddish Theater and enjoying cafe society when a cousin arrives and insists that her daughter is still alive—in Siberia.
Lillian cannot stop dreaming of Sophie; she feels she must get to Russia, yet she can't afford the passage. Her only friend, an actor turned tailor, steals atlases from the New York Public Library and sews them into an overcoat for her. She crosses North America by rail, truck, and foot, encountering drifters, wardens, pimps, missionaries, and tattoo artists. From Dawson City, Alaska, she sets sail for Russia. She falls in love, falls in with the wrong people, leaps before she looks, hopes hard, and refuses to give up.
Inspired by a true story, Away is Moll Flanders in America and Odysseus in the Jazz Age: big, wide, brilliantly imagined, unexpectedly funny, and unforgettable.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 98 more reviews...
 hypnotic August 28, 2008
What a fabulous, fascinating, complex and magical read. Not a happy book; not a cheerful book but a hook you in, make you want to stay up late and read all night kind of a book. One of the best books I've read in a very long time.
 I was taken away August 22, 2008
I bought the book at an airport shop. I wanted something short and easy.
Instead I found a lovely and often moving melange of characters that surrounded our main heroine.
It took me a little while to adjust to Amy Bloom's writing style. I found everything sort of flowed into the next. However, once I too let myself go I was carried along in the thought process. Its a book that resonates feelings more than images. It is a hard road she chooses, and some might question her logic as she leaves the safety of money and class. But instead she finds a deeper and truer self.
It was a short book but it was filled with much more than easy lessons.
Great Characters August 12, 2008
I have a habit of buying books much quicker than I get around to reading them. Such has been the case with past Amy Bloom books for me. I have a couple of her short story books, but I don't think I've read either of them all the way through - such is the way with me and short story collections.
However, I really enjoyed her novel Away. Although I feel it was a combination novel/short story collection because each chapter felt like a short story as we were introduced to different characters along Lillian's journey. Lillian was the only consistent character throughout the book. I thought the charcters were complete, interesting and sympathetic in their own rights. I also enjoyed Bloom's style of letting us know what happened to each character after Lillian left them.
I would definately recommend this book to friends who enjoy stories with good characters.
 Elusive central character - SPOILERS August 8, 2008
This was a frustrating read. I wanted to like the book, because I found the idea of Lillian's journey for love compelling. Unfortunately, Lillian herself, is not. She is presented as a strong woman, but she isn't a strong character. It may be that Bloom intends to reveal who she is by her actions (or in this case, primarily, reactions), but Lillian simply does whatever it takes to find her lost daughter - just like any mother would in that situation. There's nothing that tells us who SHE is (Does she have a sense of humor? Is she beautiful? Is she feisty?) It's easy to imagine women of vastly different stripes making the same choices Lillian does. The characters around her are so much more specific and clearly drawn that they pop, while Lillian recedes, Zelig-like, into whatever they need her to be. The ubiquitous sex as currency gets old quickly. Is it possible that every single person in the good old USA wants sex off a stranger covered in muck? Or does Lillian just have bad luck? It would make more sense if we had some idea of her physical charms. As it is, we don't even have a clear idea of what she looks like, and she's too taciturn and chimerical to be credible as an object of universal desire. Even her very brief romance with John Bishop is more or less unexplained. He wanted sex too. So what's different about him? Is it just that he cleaned her lice and cooked a rabbit? What makes her love for him enough to end the search for Sophie? Although we never stop rooting for Lillian - because we're rooting for all mothers everywhere who have lost children - it's hard to like Lillian, or even know whether we're supposed to or not. I gave it three stars because I appreciated Bloom carrying us forward in the lives of the supporting characters (who I was more interested in) and because I felt she brought to life the era and the places, particularly the gold trail in Alaska, where I have been.
great quick read, great writing, great story August 7, 2008
Away is written in brush strokes. I was able to visualize every step of the journey, both personal and physical. The easy writing style carried me through the story.
Although I enjoy historical fiction because I learn as a byproduct of a good story, this story did not provide that much knowledge of the period. None the less, I loved this page turner.
Characters are introduced throughout the story creating new, mini stories along the way. Amy Bloom closes each vignette at the time it is told, and leave nothing hanging.
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