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Title details for Home Fires by Donald Katz - Available

Home Fires

by Donald Katz
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available

Home Fires is the powerful saga of the Gordon family-real people, names unchanged. Spanning nearly five decades, from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, their story has the scope, depth, wealth of incident, and emotional intensity of a great novel, and an abundance of humor, scandal, warmth, and trauma. A masterful chronicle of the turbulent postwar era, illuminating the interplay between private life and profound cultural changes.
Donald Katz begins his account in 1945, when Sam Gordon comes home from the war to his young wife, and two-year-old daughter, eager to move his family into the growing middle class. After a few years in the Bronx, Sam and Eve move to a new Long Island subdivision and have two more children. As the '50s yield to the '60s, the younger Gordons fly out into the culture like shrapnel from an artillery shell, each tracing a unique trajectory.
Katz tells the Gordons' story-the unraveling of Sam's and Eve's American dream, to the slow, hopeful reknitting of the family-marshaling a vivid cast of supporting characters. Deftly juxtaposing day-to-day family life with landmark public events, Katz creates a rich and revealing portrait of the second half of 20th century America.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 20, 2014

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781941729007

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781941729007
      • File size: 1007 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 1, 1992
      In 1945 Samuel Gordon, an electrician, returned home to the Bronx in New York City after the close of World War II and began his search for the American dream by moving with his wife Eve and daughter Susan to suburban Long Island. In this moving, perceptive social history, Katz ( The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears ) traces the lives of the Gordon family, which swelled to include two more daughters and a son, to the year 1990, revisiting the cultural changes of four decades. The Gordon children, to their parents' occasional distress and bewilderment, flirted with political activism and addictive drugs, knew both marriage and divorce and found New Age religion. Their son Ricky ``came out''--happily gay. Katz's objective yet compassionate approach to their story makes riveting reading and fosters the conclusion that upheaval and trauma are as integral to families as love. 50,000 first printing; $65,000 ad/promo; first serial to Esquire; author tour.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 31, 1993
      In this moving, perceptive social history, nominated for the NBCC award for general nonfiction, Katz follows the lives of the Gordon family from 1945, when they moved to suburban Long Island, to the year 1990, tracing the changes of four decades.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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