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Learn moreThree generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat. Long-widowed Manya is the family’s head and its heart. She’s renowned throughout the neighborhood for her cooking, and every noontime the front room of the flat turns into Manya’s private restaurant. But Manya is no soft touch, except, perhaps, where her granddaughter Elka is concerned. Precocious Elka is her closest companion and confidante. Through Elka’s eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who move in and out of the Roths’ lives. Money may have been short but opinions were not, and their tart tongues and lively humor abound. In this riveting story lies the heart of the American immigrant experience: a novel at once wise, funny, poignant, anguishing, exultant, and bursting with love.
Eleanor Widmer, who grew up on New York’s Lower East Side, had a varied career as a scholar, critic, teacher, and a food and restaurant critic in the San Diego region where she made her home. She earned a master’s degree at Columbia University and a doctorate in English literature at the University of Washington in 1956. A passionate defender of freedom of expression, she was an expert witness in an obscenity trial involving banning the sale of Henry Miller’s novel, Tropic of Cancer. She died in California in 2004 at the age of eighty.
Lorna Raver, named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of the Year, has received numerous Audie nominations and AudioFile Earphones Awards. An experienced stage actress, she has also guest-starred on many top television series and starred in director Sam Raimi’s film Drag Me to Hell. Among her many Blackstone titles are The Age of Innocence, Up from Orchard Street, The Lodger, Selected Readings from the Portable Dorothy Parker, and Diamond Ruby.
Reviews
“Widmer’s novel of mixed emotions focuses on the Roths, especially family matriarch Manya Roth, and the manner in which they infuse their tenement and neighborhood with warmth and vitality...Lorna Raver’s reading allows the characters, a term that is equally noun and adjective, to shine through with distinctive and realistic personalities. In particular, Raver captures the strength of Manya Roth and the youthful optimism of her granddaughter, Elke. As a result, Raver not only gives life to the book, she also succeeds in reading with a joy that sustains the listener's interest.”
“Poignant snapshot of a long-lost era and place…[This] first novel offers pungent, nostalgic vignettes of Jewish life on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.”
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