Away: A Novel

by Amy Bloom

book data

2,793 ratings, 3.38 average rating, 857 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		13%
4		34%
3		33%
2		13%
1		5%

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published

June 24th 2008 (first published 2007) by Random House Trade Paperbacks

binding

Paperback, 256 pages

isbn

0812977793 (isbn13: 9780812977790)

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 destroy...more

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08/23/07

Ewurama rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in September, 2007

The review is long overdue on this, but here goes…

I wanted to *love* this book. I’d come off a string of just-okay books and was very much in the mood for something epic and heartwarming (or heartrending) and memorable. It was well-reviewed and the storyline sounded promising, so I was excited to read it. Briefly, the book is about a young Russian woman, Lillian Leyb, who escapes to NYC after her family is massacred in a pogrom only to journey back to Siberia (!) upon discover...more The review is long overdue on this, but here goes…

I wanted to *love* this book. I’d come off a string of just-okay books and was very much in the mood for something epic and heartwarming (or heartrending) and memorable. It was well-reviewed and the storyline sounded promising, so I was excited to read it. Briefly, the book is about a young Russian woman, Lillian Leyb, who escapes to NYC after her family is massacred in a pogrom only to journey back to Siberia (!) upon discovering that her young daughter may actually be alive there.

The first disappointment for me was with the author’s writing style. This is not to say that she is a bad writer, but she has a way of putting things that sometimes stops me in my tracks—not in a “wow, that’s so beautiful let me re-read it” sort of way but in a “wait, who/what is she talking about now?” kind of way that made it hard to just get wrapped up in the story.

Beyond that, the story never really tied together the way I hoped it would. The author’s background is in short story writing, that seemed very evident in this book, her first novel. Lillian’s encounters with different characters felt like discreet short stories, but if I’m not reading a short story collection, I want all the parts of the book to hang together well. The novel’s disjointedness kept it from having that epic, sweeping feel that I was expecting and hoping for. I did feel, though, that I might enjoy reading one of Bloom’s story collections.

I expected to like Lillian more as well, but she proved only to be a protagonist (as opposed to a heroine) for me. And because I often found her dull (in both senses) and not especially endearing or relatable, the more fascinating characters in the book caught my eye. I was okay with them not being realistic because I had established going into the book that it just wasn’t that type of story, and I was willing to roll with it. (I’m mean, she’s a woman traveling alone to SIBERIA to look for her daughter in a time with no phones, no e-mail, no four-wheel drive, no Polarfleece, and I don’t even think she gets frostbite. Okay, maybe she does, but you know what I mean. Finding a 5 year old in a Siberian snowstorm has got to be even more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack, but whatever. I’m willing to work with an author who wants to begin with an unrealistic premise—but make it work!)

So, I often found the other characters (an enterprising prostitute with visions of world domination named Gumdrop Brown; a con-woman named Chinky Chang—sorry, that’s really her name—from a family of grifters) more interesting than Lillian herself and wanted to follow them through the rest of the book instead of her. (Come on, you guys! Don’t you want to read about them?? Gumdrop!) Of course, some of that has to do with the fact that Lillian is on a journey which necessitates leaving some of these people behind unless she wants to lead a giant ragtag caravan all the way to Siberia; but I think that’s part of the author’s challenge: you can leave readers wanting more—but don’t make them want a whole different book.

She also sleeps (wink) with a passel of dudes (and non-dudes, come to think of it) to keep herself out of trouble. That got kind of old. It felt like the author’s lazy shorthand way of showing us how desperate, determined, and in love with her daughter Lillian was. She would do anything…over and over. Okay. Got it.

(My review is cut off b/c it's too long! See Part 2 saved under the other version of the book I've listed.)(less)

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01/26/08

Doug rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in September, 2007

recommended to Doug by: NYTimes and EW
recommends it for: Unsqueamish

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 t...more 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.(less)

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09/02/07

Lillian rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

bookshelves: fiction, reviewed

Read in September, 2007

I took a writing class with Amy Bloom during my freshman year of college. What stuck with me most from this class was her insistence that even when you're writing about an unlikable, even villainous, character, it is essential that you have sympathy for that character, or the story won't work.

That perspective is what I admire most about Amy Bloom's fiction. Almost all of the characters in Away are seriously flawed human beings, but she paints such vivid portraits of these characters...more I took a writing class with Amy Bloom during my freshman year of college. What stuck with me most from this class was her insistence that even when you're writing about an unlikable, even villainous, character, it is essential that you have sympathy for that character, or the story won't work.

That perspective is what I admire most about Amy Bloom's fiction. Almost all of the characters in Away are seriously flawed human beings, but she paints such vivid portraits of these characters' inner lives and complex pasts that I couldn't help but have sympathy for all of them and admire more than a few of them.

Away is set in the 1920s and follows the travels of Lillian Leyb, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia whose family was brutally killed in a pogrom. Lillian's chutzpah and beauty catch the fancy of Yiddish theater kings, Reuben and Meyer Burstein; under their patronage, she begins to make a new life for herself in New York City. But one day, a cousin arrives from Russia with news that Lillian's daughter, Sophie, is alive in Siberia, and Lillian sets out on a journey to find her daughter. This time, though, instead of crossing the Atlantic, she traverses the United States and makes her way up the west coast towards the wilds of Alaska. Lillian's tenacity makes her an easy character to root for; what makes her so memorable, though, as a heroine, are her clear-eyed yet compassionate appraisals of the people she encounters along the way.

A fan of historical fiction, I found great pleasure in Bloom's rendering of the glamor and bustle of 1920s New York, the sultry seediness of Seattle's Skid Row, and the bleak wilderness of the Canadian frontier. I also loved her seamless use of flash forwards, letting us know what would happen to all of the minor characters we meet, decades into the future. (Edward P. Jones used this device to great effect in The Known World--a book that Away reminds me of in other ways, with its epic cast of characters and its sober view of human nature.)

Last note: Amy Bloom writes great sex scenes! She writes them with unflinching honesty--she is clearly fascinated by the ways in which people use sex to gain advantage in life--and yet, again, her compassionate perspective comes through clearly no matter how unconventional, uncomfortable, or ugly the sexual situations her characters find themselves in. (less)

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10/24/07

Rosa rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in December, 2007

This book is really interesting. Considering the basic plot - Russian Jewish woman whose entire family was slaughtered before her eyes escapes to America with literally nothing, establishes a fairly comfortable life here, then completely abandons it to go back to Siberia, due to a rumor that her young daughter whom she previously thought dead might still be alive - on plot alone, it seems like exactly the type of book my mother-in-law would read in her book club. However, when I looked at the re...more This book is really interesting. Considering the basic plot - Russian Jewish woman whose entire family was slaughtered before her eyes escapes to America with literally nothing, establishes a fairly comfortable life here, then completely abandons it to go back to Siberia, due to a rumor that her young daughter whom she previously thought dead might still be alive - on plot alone, it seems like exactly the type of book my mother-in-law would read in her book club. However, when I looked at the reviews on this site and on Amazon before starting the book, I kept seeing complaints about how slutty the main character was, that she basically sleeps her way through her journey. So I was all prepared for nonstop sex, and while there was lots of different kinds of sexual encounters, it didn't seem overly smutty to me (although once again, if I had been expecting the usual immigrant fiction type book at the start, maybe I would have raised my eyebrows more). Anyway, the intriguing thing about this book isn't about the sex, but about the way that it's written. Bloom has a really interesting writing style - she jumps back and forth in time with no transitions, and she'll send off a minor character from the main narrative by telling you how they live out the rest of their lives (including how they die and whether or not they die happy). It was somewhat reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the way she dealt with time. I also really liked the way the book ended - a lot of questions are answered, but it wasn't a silly well-tied up Hallmark movie ending, either. She does other interesting things with language that I enjoyed - for example, she's not one of those authors who spends pages and pages detailing what the room looks like, how the character sits down in a chair, etc. She gets right to the point of the scene. Some reviewers complained about having to read a paragraph several times to understand what actually transpired, and I did have to do that a few times, but I liked it - I felt there was an actual purpose to her writing it that way. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book a lot, and I'll bet my mother-in-law is probably going to read it in her book club anyway, smut or no smut - ah, to be a fly on the wall the day they get to the girl-on-girl scene!(less)

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01/08/08

Bonnie rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in January, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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05/25/08

Yosafbridg rated it:

(review of isbn 1400063566)

bookshelves: fiction, own-and-read

Read in July, 2007

"an orphan, a widow, and the mother of a dead child, for which there's not even a special word"

A few years ago i read The Woman who Walked to Russia: a writer's search for a lost legend by Cassandra Pybus. Pybus was browsing a bookshop while traveling through Northern British Columbia when she first heard of Lillian Alling, a woman purported to have walked from New York to Alaska on her way to Siberia in 1927. There were bits and pieces of the legend to be found here and t...more "an orphan, a widow, and the mother of a dead child, for which there's not even a special word"

A few years ago i read The Woman who Walked to Russia: a writer's search for a lost legend by Cassandra Pybus. Pybus was browsing a bookshop while traveling through Northern British Columbia when she first heard of Lillian Alling, a woman purported to have walked from New York to Alaska on her way to Siberia in 1927. There were bits and pieces of the legend to be found here and there that told how Lillian, a Russian immigrant, homesick, had haunted the New York Public Library hand copying maps and then somehow made her way across the country's railways to then follow the overland telegraph trail, on foot, through sub-arctic Canada and Alaska.

The splinters of this woman's saga took hold in Pybus' mind in a way that would not let her rest until she knew whole of the tale. Once she got back to her home in Australia she researched Alling and only found more pieces, ever more enticing. Eventually she is decides to take her own road trip to try and retrace Lillian's steps and in the end it is not until she is on her flight back home that she incidentally finds the truth. It is an interesting narrative of one woman's search for another woman's single-minded journey that took me over some of the familiar territory of my youth.

Away first appealed to me because i had read some of Amy Bloom's stories and liked her style. It was described as the story of a "dangerous, accidental heroine" whose family is slaughtered in a Russian pogrom and then comes to make a new life in America where she starts out in a yiddish theatre, moves on to the Jazz District of Seattle and then travels up through the Yukon. It somehow took me by surprise once Lillian Leyb hopped that train from New York and her story started resembling details of Lillian Alling's trek. At one point i had to flip to the acknowledgements in the back to find that Pybus' The Woman Who Walked to Russia was indeed mentioned. For me, making this woman flesh and blood and giving her motivations that i had previously not understood made both books all the more valuable (Lillian Leyb is looking for the daughter she had thought dead, but now believes alive.)

I'm not sure that calling this Lillian an accidental, dangerous heroine is entirely apt. She is not the most likable protagonist i have ever read. In many ways she has left her soul back with her dead loved ones in Russia (if she ever had it to begin with, sometimes it is a little difficult to tell~though perhaps that makes her tale all the more poignant.) It is a rather brutal novel to read but it is told with an honest and clear voice that i found enjoyable. I loved that Bloom told the fate of each person that had touched Lillian's life when she saw them for the last time, it was a touch of omniscience that did not seem out of place~that is quite a feat for a writer to pull off. With a few caveats i would recommend this one.
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11/25/07

Becky rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in November, 2007

"Away" is a sad book. It's the story of Lillian Leyb, a Jewish immigrant who comes to New York after seeing her entire family violently murdered in their Russian village. When she discovers that her daughter may still be alive and in hiding in Siberia, she sets off to find her, literally crossing the globe on foot. She survives however she can: by befriending a superstar family in the New York theatre scene, by kissing up to the matron of a women's prison, by throwing in her lot with ...more

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11/14/07

Lindsey rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in November, 2007

I'm very unsure of how I feel about this book. Parts of me loved it and parts of me felt so un-intellectual and low-brow for reading this romance novel, which essentially, is what it is. For being a journey story about a woman who goes to find her daughter who was thought to be dead, there was nothing much about the daughter, just the people our heroine meets a long the way. For the most part, the characters weren't interesting (except for one prostitute named Gumdrop), the action was pretty ...more

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01/27/09

Katie rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in January, 2009

the story focuses on the external awesome life of an immigrant woman Lillian from the pograms to the lower east side to the pacific northwest to Alaska to Russia again. The charming, determined heroine struggles to survive, and then find her daughter again, and perhaps to find love. At first the book is a charming description of the immigrant experience through the eyes of the woman who has lost everything. then a newer immigrant, who may be lying, states something that changes everything for ou...more

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03/07/09

Doug Derry rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in March, 2009

This one got under my skin and crept into my dreams and into my mind at random times throughout the work day and the last 100 pages or so had me completely captivated, but more than half of the book was behind me before this effect kicked in. The prose is relentlessly effective at moving the narrative forward, forward, ever forward -- almost a reflection of our heroine's dogged commitment to her quest, which is not always rational or sane.

The story follows Lillian Leyb, an immigrant...more

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09/28/08

Shira rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in November, 2008

This book was recommended by a co-worker, and the premise sounded very interesting. Unfortunately, I really disliked the writing style. I found it very disjointed. The narration also seemed kind of distant, and it gave very little insight into how the main character felt about the terrible things happening in her life.

Aside from the writing style, I also found the story to be very depressing. It tells the story of a young Jewish woman, Lillian, in the 1920s who flees her home i...more

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03/31/08

Chai rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

bookshelves: i-own

Read in April, 2008

When I read some of Bloom's short stories, I wrote that I would have loved to have seen some of her short stories, fleshed out to be novels because I found her characters so unique and intriguing. Reading 'Away', I realise that even with the extra length of a novel to play with, Bloom still doesn't really flesh out her characters. They were fascinating, in description, then before you even got to get to know them, and love them or hate them, Lillian was leaving them behind. So I was left with th...more

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03/24/08

Erelin rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in March, 2008

Such a heartbreaking story written with Bloom's wonderful insight into the human heart! I read some reviews about this book saying that the journey the protagonist undertook in this book is not believable. What a load of crap! Anyone who has ever been a mother knows, that a mother will literally walk to the end of the world if there is even a faint chance that somewhere out there her child is alive and waiting for her! It was totally believable! I know that had I been in the shoes of the the pro...more

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12/28/07

Mark rated it:

(review of isbn 1400063566)

bookshelves: books-i-just-couldnt-get-through, fiction, historical-fiction

Read in July, 2008

I put this book on my list primarily because of several rave reviews from Goodreads friends. I made it to page 79, but it's going back to the library today.

The story itself was inventive and should have held my interest: Russian Jewish woman in the 1920s sees most of her family cruelly butchered in a pogrom and believes her daughter has died or is permanently missing, then ships to America, where she becomes involved with both the father and son in a Yiddish theater dynasty in New Y...more I put this book on my list primarily because of several rave reviews from Goodreads friends. I made it to page 79, but it's going back to the library today.

The story itself was inventive and should have held my interest: Russian Jewish woman in the 1920s sees most of her family cruelly butchered in a pogrom and believes her daughter has died or is permanently missing, then ships to America, where she becomes involved with both the father and son in a Yiddish theater dynasty in New York.

I realize I am giving up on this book before I enter the crucial phase of Lillian's search for her now apparently living daughter, but Bloom's writing style soured me too much for me to stick with it.

I don't know whether to ascribe my problem to what I would call "Creative Writing 101" syndrome or something else, but the non-sequiturs in Bloom's storytelling were driving me crazy.

Here's just one example. At one point, Lillian is returning to her apartment and is about to be surprised by the appearance of a cousin, Raisele, who has arrived from Russia and found her way there.

"She bumps open the door with her hip, holding Meyer's American cookies, Reuben's herring, her own hairpins and curling papers. Her cousin Raisele stands in front of her, head cocked, arms extended sweetly, as if she has come to America just to help Lillian with her wet packages. Lillian holds on to the boxed cookies and the herring, she thinks to put her key in her purse, and she does not faint as Raisele thought she might. Raisele herself thinks that fainting is a brilliant way to handle awkward situations, and she has practiced buckling her knees and letting her head drop loosely from her neck so many times that she can perform a faint wherever there's a little floor space."

This is how a brand new character is introduced in the flow of the story, a character who will deliver the profound message that Lillian's daughter may still be alive. There is no drama to it, and no real charm in the quirkiness of just inserting her into the narrative, and this kind of sudden turn in the flow to some new subject or person is constantly occurring in this novel.

Not for me.

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11/10/07

Jennifer rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: those who like stories of immigration, reinvention, and quests

Amy Bloom's novel grabbed me from the very beginning and elicited a mixture of emotions including, "Damm. Why can't I write like this?" It's the story of Lillian Leyb's journey through many worlds in the United States of the 20's--the Yiddish theatre scene in New York, the back alleys of Seattle, an "Agrarian Work Center for Women," and the wilds of Alaska. Lillian came to New York after her parents, husband, and daughter were killed in Russia; she thought never to return ...more

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09/11/07

Anna rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in June, 2007

1 comment

08/27/07

Emily rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

I enjoyed this book, but the story was a lot rougher around the edges than I anticipated. That said, I really enjoyed Amy Bloom's narrative style. Some passages are truly poignant and beautiful. Others are very raw. But that's true of Lillian's life. The reviews call Lillian a heroine; I'm not sure I felt that way about her. Maybe it was just hard for me to identify with her.
The most enjoyable part of the book is Lillian's trip across the country in 1924-25. She meets quite a cast of chara...more

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11/24/07

Kara rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: People who don't mind suspending disbelief to get to women's prison scenes

So, there are 74 reviews of this book, and the ones I read are pretty glowing. I didn't think it was bad, but it was incredibly strange. When you open up the first chapter and discover that you are reading about a Jewish immigrant to New York in the 1920s, it doesn't necessarily follow that she'll be murdering a pimp in Seattle a few chapters later, never mind getting a tattoo in a women's prison. I had to suspend a lot of disbelief for this one, and felt the ending was unsatisfying. Imagine...more

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09/09/07

Beverly rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in September, 2007

The voice in this novel is impeccable. The main character, Lillian, is so human that I feel I *really* do know her. Her adventure gets moving in the second half of the book, and the novel changes from a compelling story of an immigrant escaping to safety to an un-put-downable tale of Lillian's struggle to return to the source of her pain. I've read few novels that make me feel like love has been honestly explored, but this is one.

Bloom descends briefly into the full lives of chara...more

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09/03/07

Sundry rated it:

(review of isbn 9781400063)

Read in September, 2007

Oh my gosh. My only fear about reviewing this book is that nothing can probably live up to your expectations if I tell you how much I love it. It is right up there with The History of Love.

It could be partly that I am always interested in stories about people who are not middle- or upper-class. Bloom's heroine Lillian is so unapologetically determined and realistic that you can't help but fall in love with her. She embodies what is probably the book's catch phrase, what one need...more

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