Salome of the Tenements
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Book Overview
The story of a young, aspiring Jewish woman from the ghetto who will do anything to get her man in this case an upper-class WASP. When she discovers he is not really what she wanted, she will do anything to get away. Based on the real-life story of the Jewish immigrant activist Rose Pastor's fairytale romance with the millionaire socialist Graham Stokes, the novel also reflects Yezierska's own doomed romance with the famous educator John Dewey. Passionate and engagingly sardonic, it criticizes the concept of the American "Melting Pot" in the language of the Lower East Side and exposes the hypocrisy of the "good works" of the privileged class and their so-called dedication to the poor. Gay Wilentz's introduction discusses Anzia Yezierska's life and work.
Originally published in 1923.
Originally published in 1923.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0252064356
ISBN13:9780252064357
Release Date:January 1996
Publisher:University of Illinois Press
Length:216 Pages
Weight:0.61 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Well Worth Reading
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
I had never heard of the novel Salome of the Tenements, or even the author Anzia Yezieraska, when I was assigned the novel in a graduate class last semester. The rest of the students in the class hadn't either. Upon reading the book, however, I discovered that such ignorance is tragic. Salome of the Tenements is a fascinating work that should certainly be more widely known. The novel is the sometimes-melodramatic story of Sonya, a Russian Jewish immigrant. She falls in love with John Manning, a philanthropic American millionaire. The chronicle of the rise and fall of this relationship reveals much about the poor immigrant experience in America. Additionally, the novel comments philosophically on the failure of love, the difficulty of obtaining spiritual fulfillment, and the difficulties of attaining identity in Modernist America. There is so much that is interesting about the novel. It's wonderful to see it in print. Hopefully, it will begin to reach a much wider audience.
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