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Praise for the Unlost
In spite of the fact that Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio has been accused at several occasions of silencing or not fully developing the women's issues sketched on it, this work is (in my opinion) a great innovation on the part of Olsen.Yonnondio is not only the typical product of the Socialist literary tradition, wherein the expected Proletarian Realism is displayed and developed: Olsen's Feminist concerns were not completely silenced and no "lament for the lost" feminist issues can be raised and wielded against her.By includying her Feminist interests, Olsen was as strong as to differ from the Party's established rules improving in this way Proletarian Realism.

Even thoughFeminist issues and worries such as the double opression of working-class women, sex-roles or the mother-daughter relationship are not finely-developed or solutions granted, this work provides the reader with clues and hints which will make him/her question many of his/her pre-established preconceptions. ... Read more

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Chapters: Tillie Olsen, Rose O'neill, Kiara Brinkman. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 18. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Tillie Lerner Olsen (January 14, 1912January 1, 2007) was an American writer associated with the political turmoil of the 1930s and the first generation of American feminists. Olsen was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Wahoo, Nebraska and moved to Omaha while a young child. There she attended Lake School in the Near North Side through the eighth grade, living among the city's Jewish community. At age 15, she dropped out of Omaha High School to enter the work force. Over the years Olsen worked as a waitress, domestic worker, and meat trimmer. She was also a union organizer and political activist in the Socialist community. In the 1930s she joined the American Communist party. She was briefly jailed in 1934 while organizing a packing house workers' union (the charge was "making loud and unusual noise"), an experience she wrote about in The Nation and The Partisan Review. She later moved to San Francisco, California which was her home until her 85th year when she moved to Berkeley, California, to a cottage behind her youngest daughter's home. She attempted to introduce the challenges of her own life and contemporary political circumstances into a novel which she began in the 1930s, when she was only 19. Although only an excerpt of the first chapter was published in The Partisan Review in 1934, it led to a contract for her with Random House. Olsen abandoned the book, however, due to work, childrearing, and household responsibilities. Decades later in 1974, her unfinished novel was published as Yonnondio: From the Thirties. Olsen first published a book in 1961, Tell Me a Riddle, a collection of four short stories, most linked by the characters in one family. T...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=3314269 ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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This intense examination of the writings of Tillie Olsen shows Elaine Neil Orr's deeply sympathetic passion for Olsen's literary world.Orr's objective is not simply to offer literary criticism but to interpret the subjects that inspire and disclose Olsen's spiritual vision.

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This comic novel, first published in 1976, about a feisty Jewish girl child growing up in a wealthy bourgeois Brooklyn family in the 1920s is evoked by a conciousness witty, authentic, and memorable. Alone, Allegra must learn about what it means to be female, about sex, and about death. She must reconcile the bigotries and limitations of her difficult family, and give and receive love however she can. There are memorable scenes in school and summer camp, with friends, and with older girls and women. Throughout, the voice of Allegra remains compellingly defiant and lovable--and, as Tillie Olsen says, "braided with laughter." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A truly beautiful book; a rare gem
This is one of my favorite books ever. It is amazing to me that it is/was not a bestseller. Well, it shouldn't be amazing; most bestsellers are pure and horrible crap. This is literature at it's finest. A brilliant buildingsroman by a very interesting and special woman, who was also a very interesting a special little girl.

lively, precocious and tenacious girl discovers selfhood
First published over twenty-five years ago and recently reissued by The Feminist Press of the City Univesity of New York, Edith Konecky's "Allegra Maud Goldman" soars with life, tingles with humanity and snaps with feminist tang.Its theme of self-discovery, a staple of coming-of-age novels, however has a distinct slant; "Allegra" insists that its protagonist, a precocious girl growing up in late Depression Brooklyn, hurl herself against familial and societal restraints imposed on her due to the simple reason of her sex.Konecky has created a masterwork; her novel is neither strident or didactic.Instead, her protagonist, Allegra Maud Goldman tells her own story--directly, ironically and courageously.It is this unadorned, unaffected point of view and voice which enriches the novel and elevates it to mythical proportions.

Cursed with a memory which forbids her forgetting any sexist reduction of her self, Allegra's childhood unfolds as an unending conspiracy to eviscerate her unbridled enthusiasm for life and undermine her incredible intellectual talents.Unsaddled from the urban poverty afflicting most Americans during the 1930s, Allegra lacks little material comfort but suffers, at an early age, from existential oblivion.Her distant and chronically-absent mother, a social butterfly who has made peace with her marriage to a quietly tyrannical dress manufacturer, provides little to copy as a role model.Allegra must set out to develop, define and fortify her own sense of self in a world seemingly set to reduce her to docile femininity.

In a revealing conversation with her mother, Allegra expresses discontent that her family focuses attention on her older brother David, who suffers from his own lack of confidence.When she asks, "How come nobody around here is at all interested in whether I am finding myself?", her mother dismisses her by telling her that she will "grow up and marry some nice man and have children."Against this biology is destiny environment, Allegra launches her battle.As her childhood evolves, Allegra challenges the different ways boys and girls are indoctrinated to handle their emotions, does battle with a public school system that diligently attempts to socialize girls into subordinate domestic.Her sardonic friend Melanie has one of the best lines of the novel:"If they're prepring us to be housewives...why don't they teach us something useful like sexual intercourse?"

By the time Allegra has come to grips with her evolving body, she has developed a passion for writing and a talent for poetry.Her epiphany is hard-earned and promises a life of rebellion.After having one of her poems purchased for publication in a daily newspaper, her father chooses to take her letter of acceptance instead of her creation to work as a means of validation.Stunned and bewildered by how her family "managed, with nothing but good intentions, to make me feel so dismal,"Allegra repeats her own mantra of self-validation, her own declaration of independence:"You're a person.You're a person."

We tend to forget how hard girls have had to work to obtain what boys perceive is their birthright:the need for self-definition, praise for ambition and affirmation for struggle.Strong women come from strong girls.Strong girls come from the crucible of their own experiences and the will to face the hurricane.Edith Konecky's "Allegra Maud Goldman" will be a treasured companion for girls and women who savor the creation of an independent, autonomus self and will be valued by the boys and men who cherishgirls and women who are strong, vibrant and proud.

Touching, Memorable, and wonderful
I loved this book with all my heart- it told the story of how Allegra travels from childhood to young adulthood, dealing with ideas we all must cope ith- death, sex, love, and friendship. And, as a plus, her name isAllegra, a rarely seen name in the modern world, considering most peoplethink its a drug. This book is one I recomend to all, even the most cynicalof people.

Allegra Maud Goldman
This is a wonderful coming-of-age novel. Allegra Maud Goldman sees past the limitations of her conventional family, her teachers and peers. Her father is only interested in his fashion business, her mother mostly toobusy meeting friends. She notices, and usually points out, what they can'tsee, especially when they treat her differently from her brother becauseshe's a girl. For the most part she remains bright and clever, and herfrustration rarely turns inwards or outwards - she rises above everyone andeverything with the help of a friend.

It's very funny, very easy to readand stands up to being re-read.

Brilliant ! A must for all young women and their mothers.
This book taught me the meaning of empowerment before the term was coined. I read the book as a child and never forgot Allegra. I recently purchased the book again and wish I hadn't waited so long! The story weakens towardthe end but that is meaningless when taken as a whole. The character is agem - a strong female and Jewish protaganist who never avoids being honest.Quite the role model! ... Read more

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Word count: 3264. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 184 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Signed essays ranging from 500 to 2,500 words, written by subject experts and edited to form a consistent, readable, and straightforward reference. Entries include subject-specific bibliographies and textual cross-references to related essays. ... Read more

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An exploration of this most difficult and affirming relationship in the lives of Jewish women through poems, stories, and personal essays.

"You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate Faye Moskowitz's work. All you need is a mind, a heart, a mother, and a need for warmth and tradition."
-Susan Stamberg, National Public Radio ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Magnificent Book About Jewish Mothers and Their Families

What can I say about the incredible, vivid, poetic and right-on pieces in this book!!These Jewish mothers and their families seem so real, captured in literature for posterity.We cry, smile, get angry, yearn or run away fast.Whatever your reaction, you will remember these stories for a long time.My favorites were:

1. Only a Phase by Leslea Newman - A mother discovers that her daughter is a lesbian and can't accept it.In their geographic and emotional distance, we are given the literary gift of seeing how much alike they are and much they have in common.

2 Tropical Aunts by Enid Shomer - This story deals with the Jewish and WASP sides of a family along with the traditional and the eccentric.An eccentric aunt studies eastern religion and tells a writer's mother that her dead daughter is not really dead but will come back as something else. The family never speaks to her again.

3. The Different Landscape by Margaret Klee - A mother grapples with the grief and loss of her daughter after she comes out as a lesbian.The mother searches for the daughter she once knew and loved.

4. Looking for Tamerlane by Jodi Daynard - An estranged mother and daughter use the theme of searching for a rare book by Edgar Allen Poe as a reason to bring them together in a common activity.Otherwise, they are very aware of how difficult it is for them to tap into their love.

5. Mother I Hardly Knew You by Letty Cottin Pogrebin - This is a lovely insightful memoir of the author's mother who died when the author was 16 years old.How her mother influenced Ms. Pogrebin and how her legacy of leaving gave the author the strength to make choices that have been important to her is part of the anguish here.For in her dying, se gave Ms. Pogrebin the life she now has.While she was alive she gave Ms. Pogrebin the love and unconditional faith that only a mother can give.

6. A Leak in the Heart by Faye Moskowitz - This is a memoir of her mother's dying of breast cancer.
"I still grieve the words unsaid.Something terrble happens
when we stop the mouths of the dying before they are dead.
A silence grows up between us then, profounder than the
grave. If we force the dying to go speechless, the stone
dropped into the well will fall forever before the answering
splash is heard."

These are only a few of the pieces in this book. If any of these appeal to you, I hope you buy this book.It is a real gem.

Jewish women on Mothers and Daughters - a wonderful book!
I'm surprised I'm the first to review this one as I found it an absolute delight, containing the the viewpoints of 56 Jewish mothers and daughters on such diverse subjects as birth, anger, love, belonging, surviving, talking back, leaving home, when a mother dies, etc. Some of the writers were old favorites of mine (Maxine Kumin, Grace Paley) and others were new discoveries ( Robin Becker, Enid Shomer). A very rich collection of works, from poetry to short stories to memoirs. ... Read more