
The Fledglings
- Publisher
- Cormorant Books
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2014
- Category
- Literary, Historical, Coming of Age, Jewish
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781770863835
- Publish Date
- Apr 2014
- List Price
- $9.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770863828
- Publish Date
- Apr 2014
- List Price
- $21.95
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Description
For Bluma Goldberg, the teenaged daughter of a Jewish bootlegger, Prohibition-era Chicago is the furthest place one can get from law and temperance. Her first steps into womanhood are made all the more uncertain by the dangers of her father’s shadowy world.
Decades later, her loving son, Joey Krueger — a man coming off his own share of emotional turmoil — remains mystified by the person he’s known all his life. Who is she really? Fighting through Bluma’s stubborn refusals to cooperate, Joey pieces together her memories in order to understand the story of the most interesting woman he has ever known.
In The Fledglings, David Homel summons complex personalities and weaves them into a vividly-reconstructed historical landscape, taking readers on a fascinating journey into the inner thoughts and intricate relationships of a remarkable character.
About the author
David Homel has translated over 30 books, many by Quebec authors. He won the Governor General's Literary Award in translation in 1995 for Why Must a Black Writer Write About Sex? by Dany Laferrière; his translation of Laferrière's How to Make Love to a Negro was nominated in 1988; and he won the prize in 2001 with fellow translator Fred A. Reed for Fairy Wing. His novels, which include Sonya & Jack, Electrical Storms, and The Speaking Cure have been published in several languages. Homel lives in Montreal, Quebec.
Editorial Reviews
“Bluma and Bella are rich, riveting characters, and they are all the more alive, for the reader as much as for themselves, when they are together.”
Montreal Review of Books