Audiobook15 hours
The Lake on Fire
Written by Rosellen Brown
Narrated by Emily Lawrence
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
The Lake on Fire is an epic narrative that begins among nineteenth-century Jewish immigrants on a failing Wisconsin farm. Dazzled by lore of the American dream, Chaya and her strange, brilliant, young brother Asher stow away to Chicago; what they discover there, however, is a Gilded Age as empty a façade as the beautiful Columbian Exposition luring thousands to Lake Michigan's shore. The pair scrapes together a meager living-Chaya in a cigar factory; Asher, roaming the city and stealing books and jewelry to share with the poor, until they find different paths of escape. An examination of family, love, and revolution, this profound tale resonates eerily with today's current events and tumultuous social landscape. The Lake on Fire is robust, gleaming, and grimy all at once, proving that celebrated author Rosellen Brown is back with a story as luminous as ever.
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Reviews for The Lake on Fire
Rating: 4.136363427272728 out of 5 stars
4/5
11 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I just finished The Lake on Fire by Rosellen Brown last night, so am still mulling over this richly rendered novel of 1875 Chicago. The World's Fair is transforming the city's landscape with its huge Ferris wheel, but beneath the gleaming white facades is naught but flimsy lath and cardboard. A metaphor for the city itself, in which the very rich enjoy luxuries while thousands starve in the streets. Chaya and her odd, genius brother flee to the city but find it difficult to do more than survive, he as a child pickpocket, she at two jobs, rolling cigars. Like Cinderella, a wealthy man might rescue her from her drudgery, but she can barely stand the inequity of leaving everyone else behind. A novel written by a poet, who clearly loves language.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This story takes place in 1892-1894 or so in Chicago. The Columbian Exposition is an important event in it, and Jane Addams' Hull House plays an important role as well. The story follows a teen-aged secular Jewish girl and her prodigy younger brother who flee a failing farm in Wisconsin to try for a better fortune in Chicago. Their adventures lead us to understand in detail the contrast between the lives of people who work in sweat shops or sell their labor as builders and the lives of the factory owners and other wealthy people. A very good read and one of the clearest descriptions of class differences I have read. Quite relevant for our current "New Gilded Age."