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Up from Orchard Street
In the tradition of Like Water for Chocolate and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , this exhilarating novel centered around a memorable immigrant family brings to vibrant life the soul and spirit of New York’s legendary Lower East Side.
Up from Orchard Street...
...where three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat at number 12. Long-widowed Manya is the family’s head and its mother of dapper Jack, mother-in-law of frail and beautiful Lil, and adored bubby of Elka and Willy. She’s renowned throughout the teeming neighborhood for her mouthwatering cooking, and every noontime the front room of the flat turns into Manya’s private restaurant, where the local merchants come to savor her hearty stews and soups, succulent potato latkes and tzimmes, preserved fruits and glorious pastries.
She is just as renowned for her fierce sense of honor, her quick eye for charlatans, and her generosity to those in need. But Manya is no soft touch–except, perhaps, where her adored granddaughter Elka is concerned. It is skinny, precocious Elka who is her closest companion and confidante–and the narrator of this event-packed novel. Through Elka’s eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who come in and out of the Roths’ relatives, eccentric locals, doctors, busybody neighbors–as well as the many men who try fruitlessly to win voluptuous Manya’s favors. We live through the bittersweet world of these blunt, earthy, feisty people for whom poverty was endemic, illness common, crises frequent, and zest for living intense. Money may have been short but opinions were not, and their tart tongues and lively humor invest every page. In this riveting story lies the heart of the American immigrant a novel at once wise, funny, poignant, anguishing, exultant–and bursting with love.
Up from Orchard Street...
...where three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat at number 12. Long-widowed Manya is the family’s head and its mother of dapper Jack, mother-in-law of frail and beautiful Lil, and adored bubby of Elka and Willy. She’s renowned throughout the teeming neighborhood for her mouthwatering cooking, and every noontime the front room of the flat turns into Manya’s private restaurant, where the local merchants come to savor her hearty stews and soups, succulent potato latkes and tzimmes, preserved fruits and glorious pastries.
She is just as renowned for her fierce sense of honor, her quick eye for charlatans, and her generosity to those in need. But Manya is no soft touch–except, perhaps, where her adored granddaughter Elka is concerned. It is skinny, precocious Elka who is her closest companion and confidante–and the narrator of this event-packed novel. Through Elka’s eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who come in and out of the Roths’ relatives, eccentric locals, doctors, busybody neighbors–as well as the many men who try fruitlessly to win voluptuous Manya’s favors. We live through the bittersweet world of these blunt, earthy, feisty people for whom poverty was endemic, illness common, crises frequent, and zest for living intense. Money may have been short but opinions were not, and their tart tongues and lively humor invest every page. In this riveting story lies the heart of the American immigrant a novel at once wise, funny, poignant, anguishing, exultant–and bursting with love.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
August 15, 2019
This beautifully written story is told from the viewpoint of Elka, granddaughter to the matriarch of the family, Manya ("Bubba"). Three generations of this family live in a tenement in New York's Lower East side, where money is all but nonexistent, illness is widespread and deadly, and crimes were common as people fought to live.
The Roth family are immigrants, coming to the U.S. for a better life, which doesn't appear to have happened. Never one to shy away from what must be done, Manya keeps the family together, and every day people flock to her one-woman "restaurant" where she serves up amazing food to local storekeepers. She is known for her amazing soups, stews, latkes, pastries and preserves.
Based on her own true story, Eleanor Widmer effortlessly weaves fact with fiction in this tome. You will cry with the Roths, you will ride the roller coaster of hopes followed by broken dreams with them, and you will rejoice at their tenacity to get up every day and face it all again.
It's a wonderful read and one that will remind us all to be thankful for the blessings we have in our own lives.
The Roth family are immigrants, coming to the U.S. for a better life, which doesn't appear to have happened. Never one to shy away from what must be done, Manya keeps the family together, and every day people flock to her one-woman "restaurant" where she serves up amazing food to local storekeepers. She is known for her amazing soups, stews, latkes, pastries and preserves.
Based on her own true story, Eleanor Widmer effortlessly weaves fact with fiction in this tome. You will cry with the Roths, you will ride the roller coaster of hopes followed by broken dreams with them, and you will rejoice at their tenacity to get up every day and face it all again.
It's a wonderful read and one that will remind us all to be thankful for the blessings we have in our own lives.
October 20, 2015
Description: Up from Orchard Street...
...where three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat at number 12. Long-widowed Manya is the family’s head and its heart: mother of dapper Jack, mother-in-law of frail and beautiful Lil, and adored bubby of Elka and Willy. She’s renowned throughout the teeming neighborhood for her mouthwatering cooking, and every noontime the front room of the flat turns into Manya’s private restaurant, where the local merchants come to savor her hearty stews and soups, succulent potato latkes and tzimmes, preserved fruits and glorious pastries.
She is just as renowned for her fierce sense of honor, her quick eye for charlatans, and her generosity to those in need. But Manya is no soft touch–except, perhaps, where her adored granddaughter Elka is concerned. It is skinny, precocious Elka who is her closest companion and confidante–and the narrator of this event-packed novel. Through Elka’s eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who come in and out of the Roths’ lives: relatives, eccentric locals, doctors, busybody neighbors–as well as the many men who try fruitlessly to win voluptuous Manya’s favors. We live through the bittersweet world of these blunt, earthy, feisty people for whom poverty was endemic, illness common, crises frequent, and zest for living intense. Money may have been short but opinions were not, and their tart tongues and lively humor invest every page. In this riveting story lies the heart of the American immigrant experience: a novel at once wise, funny, poignant, anguishing, exultant–and bursting with love.
Opening: MY FATHER NEVER felt sorry for himself because he had no memory of his father; in fact he reveled in his semi-orphaned state because it had brought him closer to his mother, Manya, and to the young girls and older women who doted on him.
Worked well as palate-cleanser to Hallowe'en reads - a window into a culture and period that one could never experience first hand. Isn't this why we read?
...where three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat at number 12. Long-widowed Manya is the family’s head and its heart: mother of dapper Jack, mother-in-law of frail and beautiful Lil, and adored bubby of Elka and Willy. She’s renowned throughout the teeming neighborhood for her mouthwatering cooking, and every noontime the front room of the flat turns into Manya’s private restaurant, where the local merchants come to savor her hearty stews and soups, succulent potato latkes and tzimmes, preserved fruits and glorious pastries.
She is just as renowned for her fierce sense of honor, her quick eye for charlatans, and her generosity to those in need. But Manya is no soft touch–except, perhaps, where her adored granddaughter Elka is concerned. It is skinny, precocious Elka who is her closest companion and confidante–and the narrator of this event-packed novel. Through Elka’s eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who come in and out of the Roths’ lives: relatives, eccentric locals, doctors, busybody neighbors–as well as the many men who try fruitlessly to win voluptuous Manya’s favors. We live through the bittersweet world of these blunt, earthy, feisty people for whom poverty was endemic, illness common, crises frequent, and zest for living intense. Money may have been short but opinions were not, and their tart tongues and lively humor invest every page. In this riveting story lies the heart of the American immigrant experience: a novel at once wise, funny, poignant, anguishing, exultant–and bursting with love.
Opening: MY FATHER NEVER felt sorry for himself because he had no memory of his father; in fact he reveled in his semi-orphaned state because it had brought him closer to his mother, Manya, and to the young girls and older women who doted on him.
Worked well as palate-cleanser to Hallowe'en reads - a window into a culture and period that one could never experience first hand. Isn't this why we read?
June 30, 2012
EVERYONE should read this book. i thought it was fantastic. my mom and dad lived on the lower east side as children. my mom actually lived on Orchard St. this book answered so many questions of the little things she does and why.
for anyone that wants a bit of history and to learn more about the wonderful older people that are still with us to share their stories, it is a must read
for anyone that wants a bit of history and to learn more about the wonderful older people that are still with us to share their stories, it is a must read
September 22, 2015
I find all these reader references to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn annoying - ha! but aren't they exactly what made me want to try this book on?!! And they're not even wrong - this is what surprised me the most. It does at times have that same feel - although with more. Everything is more in UFOS. I would find it very difficult to describe this book. If it's possible for blinding poverty and parental neglect to have a nostalgic atmosphere, it's here. I would have given it one less star if it weren't for the Afterward where it says, "Up From Orchard Street is part memoir, part social history, and part fiction. Nevertheless, every word is true." I love that. Widmer leaves us exactly nowhere. She was 80 when she died, and had just finished the last revisions of this book. I love that too.
August 7, 2013
My favorite book in MONTHS.
This is the kind of book that is meant for me. A family with lots of members, lots of troubles, most of whose members are incredibly easy to love? I especially loved Manya and Jack, and obviously Elka - I think making the protagonist a reader is an easy way to endear him/her to most of us - and the doctors and Bertha/Goodman and the Connecticut people. I hated Lil. I hated Lil from pretty much the moment we met her until the end of the book, and every character associated with her (Ada, Bea, Geoff).
This book accomplished the strange challenge of both capturing my heart and creating an atmosphere I felt thoroughly enchanted with (despite the rats and roaches and general poverty.) Maybe it was the constant descriptions of food? That's my one warning to all: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK WHEN HUNGRY. You'll drive yourself crazy.
My only nitpick, I suppose, would be that I think the Roths escape catastrophe one too many times. I love the way their friends are so willing to pay for everything for them - not just because it makes me adore all the characters, but because it reminds me of "You Can't Take it With You" - but there are just too many illnesses that end up all right. And then to add the inevitable in (no spoilers!) as almost an epilogue, I thought, was kind of weak.
But otherwise, I found this book delightful, perhaps not the fastest read over but a wonder to stroll through and I haven't read something nearly so loving in months.
This is the kind of book that is meant for me. A family with lots of members, lots of troubles, most of whose members are incredibly easy to love? I especially loved Manya and Jack, and obviously Elka - I think making the protagonist a reader is an easy way to endear him/her to most of us - and the doctors and Bertha/Goodman and the Connecticut people. I hated Lil. I hated Lil from pretty much the moment we met her until the end of the book, and every character associated with her (Ada, Bea, Geoff).
This book accomplished the strange challenge of both capturing my heart and creating an atmosphere I felt thoroughly enchanted with (despite the rats and roaches and general poverty.) Maybe it was the constant descriptions of food? That's my one warning to all: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK WHEN HUNGRY. You'll drive yourself crazy.
My only nitpick, I suppose, would be that I think the Roths escape catastrophe one too many times. I love the way their friends are so willing to pay for everything for them - not just because it makes me adore all the characters, but because it reminds me of "You Can't Take it With You" - but there are just too many illnesses that end up all right. And then to add the inevitable in (no spoilers!) as almost an epilogue, I thought, was kind of weak.
But otherwise, I found this book delightful, perhaps not the fastest read over but a wonder to stroll through and I haven't read something nearly so loving in months.
October 26, 2024
Up From Orchard Street is Eleanor Widmer's paean to the life she knew as a child in a Jewish family who lived in a tenement house in a close-knit neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the 1930s and 1940s.
This is a novel that vividly describes the lives of 3 generations of a Jewish family (the Roths) in New York. Its head is Manya, a Russian immigrant from Odessa who immigrated with her husband Misha (who later died of tuberculosis and through overwork) to the U.S. during the early 1900s. She's a remarkably strong, loving and resilient woman who is a superb cook who, goes from working for a baker to having her own cooking and catering business within the tenement house she bought on Orchard Street. There is also her son, Jack, his wife Lillian (both of whom share a deep love for the theater and the clothing business in which both work), Jack and Lillian's two children (Elka - who is precocious with a deep love for reading - and her younger brother Willy, a sensitive lad with a knack for whistling flawlessly many of the Broadway standard songs from popular musicals), and the family's adoptive son Clayton, an African American Manya had taken on as a young orphan who stayed with the family through early adulthood.
As a reader, one becomes absorbed in the lives of these people - their ups and downs. Indeed, I formed deep attachments for the Roths, their friends in the neighborhood, the 2 doctors (Dr. Koronovsky and Dr. Scott Wolfson, his younger protégé) who became integral parts in their lives, and the various people with whom the Roths struck up friendships during a summer outing to a holiday resort in Connecticut. Manya was "the glue" who kept the family together, a beloved mother and grandmother.
Up From Orchard Street is a heartwarming story that beautifully illustrates the immigrant experience in early 20th century America. I highly recommend it.
This is a novel that vividly describes the lives of 3 generations of a Jewish family (the Roths) in New York. Its head is Manya, a Russian immigrant from Odessa who immigrated with her husband Misha (who later died of tuberculosis and through overwork) to the U.S. during the early 1900s. She's a remarkably strong, loving and resilient woman who is a superb cook who, goes from working for a baker to having her own cooking and catering business within the tenement house she bought on Orchard Street. There is also her son, Jack, his wife Lillian (both of whom share a deep love for the theater and the clothing business in which both work), Jack and Lillian's two children (Elka - who is precocious with a deep love for reading - and her younger brother Willy, a sensitive lad with a knack for whistling flawlessly many of the Broadway standard songs from popular musicals), and the family's adoptive son Clayton, an African American Manya had taken on as a young orphan who stayed with the family through early adulthood.
As a reader, one becomes absorbed in the lives of these people - their ups and downs. Indeed, I formed deep attachments for the Roths, their friends in the neighborhood, the 2 doctors (Dr. Koronovsky and Dr. Scott Wolfson, his younger protégé) who became integral parts in their lives, and the various people with whom the Roths struck up friendships during a summer outing to a holiday resort in Connecticut. Manya was "the glue" who kept the family together, a beloved mother and grandmother.
Up From Orchard Street is a heartwarming story that beautifully illustrates the immigrant experience in early 20th century America. I highly recommend it.
March 24, 2009
What a great depiction of a life very similar to that lived by each of my parents. It took me back to my parent's time and I could almost taste Manya's food. How wonderful that people treated each other with such kindness. A favor was never forgotten and a person was good for their word. I loved the Yiddish and the philosophical statements - I could visualize my grandmother's face and the shrug of her shoulders when she made similar comments.
A wonderful story - especially so for anyone who grew up as a first-generation American.
A wonderful story - especially so for anyone who grew up as a first-generation American.
October 23, 2013
I'm in the minority on this rating. The only thing that kept me reading was that this book has 4 and 5 stars on review sites. I thought it rambled on...and on...What really bothered me, though, is that the book is written from the reference of a very young girl and through out the story she is seeing or hearing people having ...relations or she is overhearing people discussing either affairs or their married relations. Really? seems unusual for a child to hear or be aware of such, certainly on such a continual level.
February 10, 2015
This was a tough choice - 4 or 5 stars? I ultimately gave it four stars because as much as I liked it, it didn't make me race to the end or weep for the beauty of the prose. But this book is excellent and I described it to a friend of mine as 'All of a Kind Family for adults.' Which is just the kind of book I've been hoping to find for quite a long time.
July 3, 2014
I saw this book at the Tenement Museum bookstore and decided to get it from the library later. I'm glad I did.
This is a novel, but as the author grew up in New York's Lower East Side, I have to assume that the book is partially a memoir. It tells the story of Manya, a Russian Jewish immigrant whose husband unfortunately died not long after they arrived in NYC. She raised her son on her own, as well as her younger sister, and for a time ran a popular restaurant in her apartment. The story is told by Manya's granddaughter, Elka.
The book's place in time isn't completely clear. It is definitely in the early twentieth century, but the book lacks landmarks which would help me pinpoint it. Neither of the world wars is mentioned, for example. There are cars, though! I assume that Manya immigrated before the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924...
There were some plot points I found surprising, but I'm pinning that surprise on my middle-class socioeconomic assumptions about how to spend money and how to improve one's life. The family regularly pawned valuable items in order to pay for vacations, for example. I was also surprised that on many occasions, the family didn't move to a better apartment even when they had the chance. Manya's son, Jack, never wanted to move out of his mother's apartment (even with a wife and two children); in fact, he got angry at the idea that his mother might remarry and leave him to provide for his own family. Jack's wife, Lil, suffers from depression and hardly serves as a mother to her two children. Elka's brother, Willy, is sickened by the harsh conditions and is unable to support himself later in life.
The story weaves together many threads - three generations of the Roth family as well as their extended family members, friends, neighbors, and business associates. I usually enjoy a novel with many storylines that constantly cross each other. This one, with its focus on the American immigrant experience, had my full attention.
Unfortunately, this was Widmer's first novel and she died shortly before it was published. I would have liked to read more by her.
This is a novel, but as the author grew up in New York's Lower East Side, I have to assume that the book is partially a memoir. It tells the story of Manya, a Russian Jewish immigrant whose husband unfortunately died not long after they arrived in NYC. She raised her son on her own, as well as her younger sister, and for a time ran a popular restaurant in her apartment. The story is told by Manya's granddaughter, Elka.
The book's place in time isn't completely clear. It is definitely in the early twentieth century, but the book lacks landmarks which would help me pinpoint it. Neither of the world wars is mentioned, for example. There are cars, though! I assume that Manya immigrated before the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924...
There were some plot points I found surprising, but I'm pinning that surprise on my middle-class socioeconomic assumptions about how to spend money and how to improve one's life. The family regularly pawned valuable items in order to pay for vacations, for example. I was also surprised that on many occasions, the family didn't move to a better apartment even when they had the chance. Manya's son, Jack, never wanted to move out of his mother's apartment (even with a wife and two children); in fact, he got angry at the idea that his mother might remarry and leave him to provide for his own family. Jack's wife, Lil, suffers from depression and hardly serves as a mother to her two children. Elka's brother, Willy, is sickened by the harsh conditions and is unable to support himself later in life.
The story weaves together many threads - three generations of the Roth family as well as their extended family members, friends, neighbors, and business associates. I usually enjoy a novel with many storylines that constantly cross each other. This one, with its focus on the American immigrant experience, had my full attention.
Unfortunately, this was Widmer's first novel and she died shortly before it was published. I would have liked to read more by her.
July 15, 2020
Fascinating snippet of NYC history. This book was a glimpse into the life of early Jewish immigrants in America. A history as well as cultural lesson. A great read.
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June 20, 2012This was the first book I bought on my Kindle. I read it in one day! I loved the story about a turn of the century Jewish family struggling to survive in the Lower East Side. I grew up in the hard knocks of the 70s and 80s on the LES within a Colombian family. Although the details might be different, we shared a lot with this story (don't remember if it's partly fictional).
July 12, 2021
Definitely more of a memoir, no real plot, just sort of rambling stories. Started to find its feet more toward the end. Some bits were really great and it was an excellent view into this part of history, but for the most part it was pretty slow and I found myself zoning out frequently.
May 6, 2018
DNF, boring characters, no plot, no point in going on.
August 11, 2023
All of the stars! I loved this book so much I didn't want it to end! I read it slowly and savored this novel, which is semi-autobiographical. The story centers on the Roth family, Russian Jewish immigrants, and their beloved neighborhood in the Lower East Side. Bubby, the grandmother, is the matriarch, having traveled to the US as a young, married teenager. She worked as a cook and at a bakery, providing for her infant son, Jack, and her sick husband. When her husband died, a customer gifted her an apartment on Orchard Street where she served meals at lunch for decades, feeding the neighborhood. Jack, a lover of fashion, helped decorate the room to provide the proper ambiance and Clayton, a young, orphaned black boy, worked in exchange for food. When Bubby was able, she sent home for her younger sister, Bertha, who also helped in the restaurant until she went to live with cousins who were childless but Bubby continued to be her mother figure and threw the wedding reception when she married Goodman. Jack met and married Lil and they had 2 children, Willy and Elka, and they all lived with Bubby on Orchard Street. Elka is our narrator and she introduces us to all of the lunch customers, some of whom became friends, and the neighbors in the building and the surrounding Jewish community. They included the clothing store owners where Jack and Lil worked, the doctors who cared for the family through all of the illnesses that were common among tenement dwellers, Jack's bookie, Rocco, and cab driver, Adam. Everyone in the neighborhood helped one another, providing either food, like Bubby, or clothing or shelter to those in need. As Jack and Lil move up in their careers, with Lil landing a coveted job at Saks, they were able to go on summer vacations and for three summers in a row they go to a farm in Connecticut where pre-teen Elka and Lil both have different kinds of crushes on the college age boys who work there. Elka loved to read and dreamed of writing her own stories some day and the boys encouraged her, giving her notebooks and pencils for writing and opening an account for her at the local bookstore. Another perk of the new jobs was the ability to move to a new apartment. Bubby had resisted moving from Orchard Street for years, wanting to remain a part of the community. But when a serious bout of pneumonia strikes most of the family, she relents and agrees to move. Her restaurant has been in decline for years, with customers preferring to go to the new cafeteria and eat sandwiches rather than full meals. She started catering lunches for offices, and continues that in the new apartment, but it isn't the same. The new apartment keeps the family in better health, except for Lil, who has a weak heart from her poor living conditions when she was a young girl, and it has gotten worse with the recent illnesses the family suffered. Lil was too sick to go back to Connecticut for their final trip and she dies just a few months later. No one in the family, with the exception of Elka, escaped long term effects from living in the tenement. Jack died of emphysema, Bubby from a kidney condition and Willy was in and out of mental institutions. A heartbreaking ending to a wonderful book. I highly recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2017
Very Enjoyable...But Much More Of A Fictionalized Memoir than A Traditional Novel!
If you are expecting a traditional novel with a beginning, middle and end, then Up From Orchard Street is not going to meet your expectations. That's because it is not a traditional novel. Instead Up From Orchard Street is primarily a highly enjoyable memoir -- albeit fictionalized -- of the author's life during her pre/early teen years growing up with her Jewish immigrant grandmother, parents, and younger brother in a small tenement flat on the lower east side of NYC during the 1930's.
While not having a plot, per se, what the author does very well is tell about her life and those of her primary family members through a series of rich vignettes. These vignettes are written so well that they enable the reader to feel that they are not only part of the family, but also "right there" experiencing the soul and spirit of New York's Lower East Side during the 1930's.You'll come to get a real taste of not only the mouth-watering meals the grandmother prepared that made her a local celebrity, but more importantly, the overwhelming sense of "community" that existed in a neighborhood in which its residents were poor financially but, for the most part, rich in terms of understanding and kindness for each other.
While Up From Orchard Street is not likely to be a novel for the reader who must have a traditional plot, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in getting a sense of how life might have been like in New York's Lower East Side (or a similar tenement neighborhood) during the period in social history in which this book is set; and especially those whose parents or grandparents lived all or part of their lives there.
If you are expecting a traditional novel with a beginning, middle and end, then Up From Orchard Street is not going to meet your expectations. That's because it is not a traditional novel. Instead Up From Orchard Street is primarily a highly enjoyable memoir -- albeit fictionalized -- of the author's life during her pre/early teen years growing up with her Jewish immigrant grandmother, parents, and younger brother in a small tenement flat on the lower east side of NYC during the 1930's.
While not having a plot, per se, what the author does very well is tell about her life and those of her primary family members through a series of rich vignettes. These vignettes are written so well that they enable the reader to feel that they are not only part of the family, but also "right there" experiencing the soul and spirit of New York's Lower East Side during the 1930's.You'll come to get a real taste of not only the mouth-watering meals the grandmother prepared that made her a local celebrity, but more importantly, the overwhelming sense of "community" that existed in a neighborhood in which its residents were poor financially but, for the most part, rich in terms of understanding and kindness for each other.
While Up From Orchard Street is not likely to be a novel for the reader who must have a traditional plot, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in getting a sense of how life might have been like in New York's Lower East Side (or a similar tenement neighborhood) during the period in social history in which this book is set; and especially those whose parents or grandparents lived all or part of their lives there.
November 11, 2022
Thoroughly enjoyed this book having taken place in the early 20th century and living through along with the family the highs and lows of the Roths family. Anyone that who has ever wondered what the lives of their families roots were can well imagine with the help of this novel. For all of us who are children, grandchildren of immigrants that initially settled in NY. Love seeing how life was lived. How they started with nothing and how the Mother slowly made her way and how the grandchildren endured being cold at night, wearing not the up to date clothing & seeing how their parents navigated the lives they were born into. Definitely recommend this book, it was a good read!
December 14, 2023
Part memoir, part novel, Up from Orchard Street read more like a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive novel, but I enjoyed it, particularly how the author describes life in the tenements. The book is full of interesting characters — Lil and Jack, the narrator's parents, salespeople with a flair for theatrics; the kind doctors Wolfson and Dr. K, who attend to the family's severe medical needs, and the narrator's Bubby, who cooks elaborate meals for them all. The end of the book focuses on the family's move upward from the tenements to a better life, while the narrator longs to escape New York entirely.
April 9, 2019
I really liked this book. I’m so sorry the author passed. Having grown up in Brooklyn and of Eastern European heritage, I got all of the quirkiness and beliefs. Primarily from a Polish background words my mother used that I thought were from the Polish language were actually Jewish. I had to chuckle never speaking anything but English. Ah Brooklyn in those days when neighbors were like second family. A lovely book, frustrating at times as family can be and heartrenching at others. Feeling, which is almost nonexistent in today’s world. I highly recommend it.
January 20, 2021
While accidentally finding a cookbook with origins on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of New York City, this book also popped up. It sounded like a great historical read about immigrants in 1930s everyday life. Nine-year-old Elka is the narrator and the colorful characters are immensely captivating, as are their stories. Widmer describes it as "part memoir, part social history and part fiction. Nevertheless, every word is true." I was hooked from the first page. A lively and animated story from a not-to-be forgotten time in local, family, and U.S. history.
June 3, 2024
DNF - I love historical fiction books but this one didn’t suit the bill. I just couldn’t hack it anymore. Parts of the story were interesting but other parts just didn’t fit. I felt like there was quite a bit of liberal literary license out of the 2020’s (I know it was published in 2005) vs that of the immigrants in NY during 1930’s. For one, Elka sure was privy to some adult themed discussions and topics; one such discussions with her father - it just didn’t feel authentic or appropriate. Additionally, the book just droned on and on and I finally made the decision to stop at chapter 10.
September 18, 2018
What a beautiful book! I don't know why more people aren't talking about it. In the author's own words: "Up from Orchard Street is part memoir, part social history and part fiction. Nevertheless, every word is true."
This book reminded me of the importance of family, friendships, all other relationships and food. It also added another layer to my understanding of New York City and all it's long and varied history. If those things sounds interesting to you, read this book.
This book reminded me of the importance of family, friendships, all other relationships and food. It also added another layer to my understanding of New York City and all it's long and varied history. If those things sounds interesting to you, read this book.
June 28, 2019
I got this book at the Tenement Museum in New York City lower East Side. It was written by someone who live there, but wasn't written very chronologically, which made it a bit confusing, but it clearly gave me the sense of what it was like to live there: the awful issues the people had to deal with and the camaraderie that helped them deal with crushing poverty and disease.
February 19, 2021
Such an enjoyable book! If you liked stories like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, you will like this novel, based on the author's real life growing up in the Lower East Side with her Bubby, parents, brother and a cast of relatives and neighbors who frequent their tenement to dine at her Bubby's restaurant Manya, located in their apartment.
May 28, 2024
This book was cute but that’s really it. I liked the beginning so much more and hearing about manyas life, but didn’t connect much to the others. Lovedd all the food and cooking Included. The ending was just like ???? Okay ? It felt so abrupt but I’m going to walk to the places mentioned bc that’d be fun
July 10, 2024
a most insightful, incredible book
This was a ten star read. I was there with all the characters. They became real to me. I lived with them on Orchard Street, I tasted Manya’s food. I lived the life with them. I’m so sorry that the author has passed away, I would have loved to share my love of her novel with her. I hope her family gets to see reviews left.
This was a ten star read. I was there with all the characters. They became real to me. I lived with them on Orchard Street, I tasted Manya’s food. I lived the life with them. I’m so sorry that the author has passed away, I would have loved to share my love of her novel with her. I hope her family gets to see reviews left.
August 9, 2020
Enjoyable, many parts of the story were familiar from other books written about this part of NY during those years. The story told from the granddaughter's POV was entertaining, interesting, sad and funny. I liked the author's notes at the end.
October 8, 2017
An interesting true story about Jewish immigrant family. I enjoyed this book, and all of its characters.
August 29, 2018
Very good! :)
November 5, 2018
I loved this book. One of the best things I’ve read in a long time.
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