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.

There, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, both she and Gutke find themselves involved in the nascent labor union and suffrage movements. After seeing her mother raped and killed during a particularly vicious progrom in her native village of Kishinev, Chava immigrates to America. 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. Beyond the Pale is Gutke's story, detailing her odyssey from a Russian shtetl to a comfortable Manhattan brownstone. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.Įlana 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. 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. 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. Chava has come to America with the family of her cousin Rose, and the two girls begin working at fourteen.

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.

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award : “A page-turner that brings to life turn-of-the-century New York’s Lower East Side.” - Library Journalīorn 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.

Beyond the pale dykewomon