Details
Synopsis
A work of nonfiction that chronicles the stormy lives of a Jewish father and son in the Soviet Union.
| Size | | Length: | 249 pages | | Height: | 10.0 in | | Width: | 7.0 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 20.8 oz |
Industry Reviews
Potok, the celebrated author of best-selling novels of Jewish life (e.g., The Chosen), here turns to biography to tell of two generations, father and son, in a Russian Jewish family. Against the backdrop of 19th-century Russian prejudice, the author portrays the life of the father, Solomon, who casts his lot as revolutionary, Bolshevik, and Soviet and never looks back as the regime returns to its anti-Semitic past. Meanwhile, his son, Volodya, raised as an assimilated Jew in Soviet society, finds his own role as rebel, becoming a Zionist and leading dissident when faced with Soviet discrimination. Potok, a family friend, had access to their records to explore the rift between the generations and the broader question of the nature of the loyal citizen who turns revolutionary. His well-written, thought-provoking book will find an audience among generalists and historians. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/96.] Rena Fowler, Humboldt State Univ., Arcata, Cal.
Breitman
Novelist Potok (The Chosen) presents here the history of a family of Soviet Jews centered on the relationship of father and son. Solomon Slepak was an old-guard Bolshevik who never lost his faith in the party and survived the Stalinist purges miraculously and mysteriously (Stalin exterminated almost all old party members). His son, Volodya, grew up believing in the party but, as he married and started raising a family, came to question the Communist system and eventually became a refusenik, a dissident who protested openly against the regime. The author met Volodya and his wife, Masha, in 1985 while on a trip to Moscow. This compelling account, which is also a chronicle of the Soviet dissident movement, highlights the heroism, and sacrifice, of those who stand up to the power of a totalitarian state. (Nov.) FYI: The title comes from a line of poetry by Aleksandr Pushkin.
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