Up from Orchard Street

I found this story charming and enlightening regarding the Jewish immigrant experience in NYC in the 1930's. I came to love the characters and was sad when the book ended because I felt like I knew the characters personally. I loved the way the author combined a partial memoir and a social history of the times. Definitely worth reading or giving as a gift. Would make a great movie!

I could not put this book down! I felt that I was actually living the story. Because I loved this book so much, I even bought a book for my daughter.

Even if you are not a New Yorker, this book tugs on your heartstrings. It is a story of a loving, closely knit family with all the trials and tribulations of immigrants in the lower east side of New York. Our bookclub enjoyed it immensely.

Eleanor Widmer has written a beautiful memoir of her life growing up on New York's Lower East Side during the 1930s. In the tradition of E.L. Doctorow and Isaac Bashevis Singer, Ms. Widmer has created a poignant portrait of one family's struggle to beat the odds and survive. I had the good fortune to be a student in Dr. Widmer's creative writing classes at San Diego State University, and her stories of growing up poor in New York were lessons for us all. Her charisma, her wit, and her razor-sharp intellect echo through the pages of "Up From Orchard Street." Her voice in these pages takes me back to her classroom of the 1970s. She was an amazing professor and her book is a joy to read. I'm thrilled to see that Random House has published this beautifully-written work. Bennett Cerf, who selected Ms. Widmer for top honors in a writing contest back in the early sixties, would indeed be proud. Eleanor Widmer has left a resplendent legacy for her students, her friends, and her family. Brady Kelso, Ramona, California

Teenage Manya and her spouse accompanied by their infant son Abraham Jacob left Odessa, Russia for New York, but her husband died during the journey. Manya obtained work at Grenspan's Bakery on Manhattan's Lower East Side. When Jack turned four, Manya sent for her much younger sister seven years old Bertha to live with her and her son. Her cooking gets Manya a following and soon a typesetter at the Jewish Forward enables her to open her own restaurant on Orchard Street. In the 1930s, Jack works in the fashion industry where he meets and marries the delicate from childhood illnesses but lovely Lil, who is the opposite of her steel magnolia mother-in-law. They have two children and adopt a starving black child whose name sounds almost like Clayton so they call him Clayton. Through the three generations, Manya is the matriarchal soul of this Jewish family, but changes are coming with a cafeteria opening nearby and a trip to Connecticut. UP FROM ORCHARD STREET is told by one of the grandchildren Elka about life in a 1930s Jewish family, which centers on "Bubby" Manya. Elka provides insider depth to life in the Lower East Side of New York as few writers have accomplished. With photos from the era and specific historical places (my Bubby used to take me shopping on Orchard Street, which was in the early 1960s the best bargain around if you were willing to negotiate) included in the fine plot, readers will conclude that this is a superb biographical fictionalized account paying homage to Eleanor Widmer's bubby as well as to the late author who recently passed away. Harriet Klausner