Persea's
25th anniversary edition of this classic of twentieth-century American
literature. More than 250,000 copies sold. Set on New York's Lower East
Side during the 1920s, this is the moving story of a young woman's
struggle to free herself from the traditional female role in an
Orthodox Jewish family and society. Sara Smolinksy, the youngest
daughter of a rabbi, watches as her father marries off her sisters into
dire circumstances, and she vows to escape this fate. She leaves home,
takes a job as an ironer, and rents a room with a door: "This door was
life. It was air. The bottom starting-point of becoming a person."
Sara's rebellion and her struggle for self-fulfillment-for education,
work, and a marriage based on love-resonates with a passionate
intensity all can share. In this new edition, the original text is
retained; the introduction is updated; and a new foreword is added
describing the discovery of this important work and the relationship
with Yezierska's daughter that followed.
