Amy Bloom '75 Away (Random House, 2007) Bloom's critically acclaimed novel centers around a memorable heroine named Lillian Leyb, a 1920s Russian Jewish immigrant who in the course of the novel searches for her daughter as she travels to New York and then across the United States and through Alaska and Canada on her way to Siberia. Lillian has survived a Russian pogrom that has taken the lives of her husband and parents. When she arrives in New York’s Lower East Side, she encounters the world of Yiddish theater and becomes the mistress of both a theater impresario, Reuben Burstein, and his actor son. The first portion of the book concentrates on Lillian's life in New York, while the rest of the novel follows her transcontinental journey as she meets a number of characters and uses all her cunning and will to survive. In her New York Times review, Janet Maslin described the novel as "a literary triumph". It is accessible to the point of pure enthrallment without compromising its eloquence or thematic strength.”