Book Description

Masters of short fiction illumine questions of pain, suffering, medicine, fate, and, most starkly, "Why am I dying?" Circling in psychological time, Tillie Olsen depicts the death of a working-class grandmother, a past proletarian revolutionary in Russia, and how her death devastates her family in mid-twentieth-century America. Leo Tolstoy's cancer-ravaged Czarist bureaucrat weighs his life, searching for semblances of meaning in a linear, realistic story. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

A special twenty-fifth anniversary edition relaunches this beloved classic coming-of-age nove, which was called "one of those rare delights…as wise as it is funny" (Alix Kates Shulman, Ms. magazine). This endearing novel chronicles the growth of the young Allegra in pre-World War II Brooklyn as she learns about sex, death, bigotry, family limitations, and what it means to be young and female and independent.

Marketing Plans for Allegra Maud Goldman:
Advance review copies to booksellers
Twenty-fifth anniversary press kit
Strong media push

Edith Konecky is the author of a second novel, A Place at the Table, as well as short fiction and poetry.

Customer Reviews (5)

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!

I read this book 20 years ago and I have never forgotten it!
I read this book when I was 10 and had just had dental work done.My treat following enduring that was to pick out a book.It was my good fortune to pick this one.Allegra spoke so strongly to me as a 10-year-old Jewish and precocious girl that I still think about it 20 years later.The family dynamics, the self-esteem campaign launched for her brother and the conflicts bewteen the old and new social mores were way ahead of its time.I can't wait until my children are old enough to read it, too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

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