Beyond the Pale

By Elana Dykewomon

Deal Ends: Tue 5th May

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award: "A page-turner that brings to life turn-of-the-century New York's Lower East Side." —Library JournalBorn in a Russian-Jewish settlement, Gutke Gurvich is a midwife who immigrates to New York's Lower East Side with her partner, a woman passing as a man. Their story crosses with that of Chava Meyer, a girl who was attended by Gutke at her birth and was later orphaned during the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. Chava has come to America with the family of her cousin Rose, and the two girls begin working at fourteen. As they live through the oppression and tragedies of their time, Chava and Rose grow to become lovers—and search for a community they can truly call their own.Set in Russia and New York during the early twentieth century and touching on the hallmarks of the Progressive Era—the Women's Trade Union League, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, anarchist and socialist movements, women's suffrage, anti-Semitism—Elana Dykewomon's Beyond the Pale is a richly detailed and moving story, offering a glimpse into a world that is often overlooked."A wonderful novel." —Sarah Waters Amazon.com Review Elana Dykewomon's Lambda Award-winning novel Beyond the Pale announces itself to the world with an infant's scream--"a new voice, a tiny shofar announcing its own first year." The midwife attending this birth is Gutke Gurvich, a half-Jew with different colored eyes and a gift for seeing into the spirit world. Beyond the Pale is Gutke's story, detailing her odyssey from a Russian shtetl to a comfortable Manhattan brownstone. But, as Dykewomon puts it, "Whenever you tell the story of one woman, inside is another," and this rich, multilayered novel is also the story of Chava Meyer, the baby girl Gutke delivered that day, as well as the story of the important women in both of their lives: mothers, sisters, neighbors, lovers, friends. After seeing her mother raped and killed during a particularly vicious progrom in her native village of Kishinev, Chava immigrates to America. There, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, both she and Gutke find themselves involved in the nascent labor union and suffrage movements. Dykewomon has clearly done her research here, and Beyond the Pale presents a beautifully detailed account of life among turn-of-the-century immigrant Jews, from classes at the Henry Street Settlement House to the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Through the lens of several lesbians' lives, Dykewomon draws a portrait of an entire Diasporan community living through the terror and uncertainties of both Russian progroms and life in the New World. Review “One of the most compelling novels I have ever read . . . a work of remarkable importance.” —The Village Voice “Truly great novels aren’t written very often, but Beyond the Pale deserves all the glowing adjectives available . . . filled with memorable scenes and glorious characters.” —Bay Area Reporter “A wonderful novel . . . I wept like a fool for pages; these characters had become so strongly defined, I too felt like family.” —Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art “Beyond the Pale is a remarkable and unforgettable chronicle told through wisdom, passion and clarity by one of our community’s foremost storytellers.” —Feminist Bookstore News “Sensuous, moving, inspiring: Beyond the Pale is a wonderful novel.” —Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith  About the Author Elana Dykewomon has published seven award-winning books foregrounding lesbian heroism, including the classics Riverfinger Women (1974), Beyond the Pale (1997), and Risk (2009). A former editor of the international lesbian feminist journal Sinister Wisdom, she is the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award. In 2009 she received the Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists’ Prize, awarded by the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival. Dykewomon and her partner live in Oakland, California.