‘Lucky Us,’ by Amy Bloom, America’s Victor Hugo

If America has a Victor Hugo, it is Amy Bloom, whose picaresque novels roam the world, plumb the human heart and send characters into wild roulettes of kismet and calamity. Her best known work, “Away,” was an epic adventure set in the early 20th century. In it, a Jewish mother survives a devastating Russian pogrom, comes to America, becomes a famous actor’s mistress, then traverses the country, joins the African American underworld, and crosses Alaska and Siberia in search of her daughter. There are few who feel the immigrant impulse as keenly as Bloom. There are fewer still who understand that Americans are the “lucky us,” the anointed ones who can shuck the past again and again until, by dint of wit and will, we reinvent ourselves. “It’s good to be smart,” a character in Bloom’s new novel tells us; “it’s better to be lucky.”

Read full article >>

















Via http://ift.tt/1Ar96bh