
Away is the extraordinary story of young Lillian Leyb. Her family destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way. In 1920s New York, she is taken under the wing of Mr Reuben Burstein, the famous Impresario & his matinee-idol son Meyer. But then her wily cousin Raisele arrives with some unexpected news about Lillian's young daughter Sophie. Driven by a wild hope, Lillian sets off on an odyssey across America, travelling from New York's Lower East Side to Seattle's Skid Row & up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail towards Siberia. Amy Bloom's first novel for eight years revitalises the American road trip novel, from the perspective of a vulnerable but spirited woman. It paints a vivid, earthy & surprising picture of 1920s America, its smells & textures, its population of drifters & con artists, pimps & prostitutes. Away is storytelling at its finest
- epic in sweep, but intimate & psychologically acute, moving but unsentimental. Like the novels of Sarah Waters, it is both richly authentic in its period detail, & fresh & contemporary in its style. But above all Bloom has created an unforgettable character in Lillian Leyb
- her voice, haunted/damaged yet innocent, passionate, witty & unpretentious, is so believable & strong that her presence lingers long after the novel ends.