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A review by komet2020
Up from Orchard Street by Eleanor Widmer
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Up From Orchard Street is Eleanor Widmer's paean to the life she knew as a child in a Jewish family who lived in a tenement house in a close-knit neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the 1930s and 1940s.
This is a novel that vividly describes the lives of 3 generations of a Jewish family (the Roths) in New York. Its head is Manya, a Russian immigrant from Odessa who immigrated with her husband Misha (who later died of tuberculosis and through overwork) to the U.S. during the early 1900s. She's a remarkably strong, loving and resilient woman who is a superb cook who, goes from working for a baker to having her own cooking and catering business within the tenement house she bought on Orchard Street. There is also her son, Jack, his wife Lillian (both of whom share a deep love for the theater and the clothing business in which both work), Jack and Lillian's two children (Elka - who is precocious with a deep love for reading - and her younger brother Willy, a sensitive lad with a knack for whistling flawlessly many of the Broadway standard songs from popular musicals), and the family's adoptive son Clayton, an African American Manya had taken on as a young orphan who stayed with the family through early adulthood.
As a reader, one becomes absorbed in the lives of these people - their ups and downs. Indeed, I formed deep attachments for the Roths, their friends in the neighborhood, the 2 doctors (Dr. Koronovsky and Dr. Scott Wolfson, his younger protégé) who became integral parts in their lives, and the various people with whom the Roths struck up friendships during a summer outing to a holiday resort in Connecticut. Manya was "the glue" who kept the family together, a beloved mother and grandmother.
Up From Orchard Street is a heartwarming story that beautifully illustrates the immigrant experience in early 20th century America. I highly recommend it.
This is a novel that vividly describes the lives of 3 generations of a Jewish family (the Roths) in New York. Its head is Manya, a Russian immigrant from Odessa who immigrated with her husband Misha (who later died of tuberculosis and through overwork) to the U.S. during the early 1900s. She's a remarkably strong, loving and resilient woman who is a superb cook who, goes from working for a baker to having her own cooking and catering business within the tenement house she bought on Orchard Street. There is also her son, Jack, his wife Lillian (both of whom share a deep love for the theater and the clothing business in which both work), Jack and Lillian's two children (Elka - who is precocious with a deep love for reading - and her younger brother Willy, a sensitive lad with a knack for whistling flawlessly many of the Broadway standard songs from popular musicals), and the family's adoptive son Clayton, an African American Manya had taken on as a young orphan who stayed with the family through early adulthood.
As a reader, one becomes absorbed in the lives of these people - their ups and downs. Indeed, I formed deep attachments for the Roths, their friends in the neighborhood, the 2 doctors (Dr. Koronovsky and Dr. Scott Wolfson, his younger protégé) who became integral parts in their lives, and the various people with whom the Roths struck up friendships during a summer outing to a holiday resort in Connecticut. Manya was "the glue" who kept the family together, a beloved mother and grandmother.
Up From Orchard Street is a heartwarming story that beautifully illustrates the immigrant experience in early 20th century America. I highly recommend it.