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Fiction Literary

The Fledglings

by (author) David Homel

Publisher
Cormorant Books
Initial publish date
Apr 2014
Category
Literary, Jewish, Historical, Coming of Age
  • 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 was born in Chicago in 1952 and left that city in 1970 for Paris, living in Europe the next few years on odd jobs and odder couches. He has published eight novels, from Electrical Storms in 1988 to The Teardown, which won the Paragraph Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction in 2019. He has also written young adult fiction with Marie-Louise Gay, directed documentary films, worked in TV production, been a literary translator, journalist, and creative writing teacher. He has translated four books for Linda Leith Publishing: Bitter Roase (2015), (2016), Nan Goldin: The Warrior Medusa (2017) and Taximan (2018). Lunging into the Underbrush is his first book of non-fiction. He lives in Montreal.

David Homel's profile page

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

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