Sussel is a well to do young woman in Chernowitz, known as "little Vienna." She studies languages and pharmacy in several universities in Europe and is looking forward to a full and privileged life. But World War II completely overturns everyone's lives, as first the Russians and then the Germans overtake Chernowitz, rounding up all Jews for work camps and even execution. Sussel is forced to use her pharmaceutical skills, and even sex, to save her own life and those of her father and her childhood suitor, Max. 
The Walnut Tree sets the devastating power of historical events against the personal forces of reconciliation and enduring love. This powerful, disturbing and finally transcendent story is written with captivating detail and sensuous, often poetic, writing. The novel deals with vital social, political, and ethical issues, and finally, and most importantly, with love.

The Walnut Tree

Literature & Fiction

Blum, Martha

Contemporary

Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd

This new short-story collection by the acclaimed author of The Walnut Tree beautifully captures a threatened way of life and a host of fascinating characters. Martha Blum has drawn upon the vivid memories of a childhood in her grandfather's village to create a vibrant and compelling world, a small Jewish village, or shtetl, in Ukraine in the early 1900s. The imagined village of Suczorno, "the live shtetl," offers "an array of the subtle and the crude, the imaginative, the God-inspired and the everyday ordinary, this canvas of colour and sound..." Here lives Sarah, whose "calling" is to know God and to participate fully in the spiritual life of her people. And Shimon, who travels to Chernowitz to apprentice as a printer, learns about the world of science and Socialism, but chooses to return home to his true love, Ethel. And here is Bimbule, a fool who makes a living from luft, from air. This is Suczorno: "A blessed place to live. Synagogue in the middle, cobblestones around it. Slate of green and gold around the fountain...Women from both sides of the divided town are here for its heavenly water. The rich from the high bank, the poor from the low bank. But no matter. So mortal, all of us."

Children of Paper

Poetry

Coteau Books

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Books by Blum, Martha