THE SONS OF AVROM

Winner of the Prix Goncourt, this massive novel deals with a large family of Russian Jews who escaped the programs of their native land to find freedom and fulfillment in France. At the turn of the century Avrom, a religious patriarch with a whim of iron, follows his two sons Yankel and Moishe to Paris, sets up a prosperous grocery store, bedevils his family and then takes off for Palestine. The body of the novel concentrates on gentle Yankel with his thwarted dreams of becoming a true Frenchman, his wife Hannah happy only in the Jewish quarter of Paris and his eldest son Simon, a shrewd businessman who marries a Frenchwoman and whose children are truly French, one dying as a hero of the Resistance. A fully satisfying novel about a universal theme, rich with memorable characters, full of humor and wisdom, this family chronicle with its interesting and different background is truly an enjoyable reading experience.