Edges The Audiobook of Award-Winning Novel Starring Tovah Feldshuh
Wins Audiofiles Magazines Earphone Award
Released
on: August 1, 2008, 12:30 pm
Press
Release Author: Midsummer Sound Company
Industry:
Entertainment
Press
Release Summary: Edges O Israel O Palestine, by Leora Skolkin-Smith,
has been awarded the prestigious "Earphones Award" from
AudioFile Magazine.
Press
Release Body: When Liana Bialik's mother takes her from the predictable
confines of Westchester County, New York, to Israel in the middle
of the 1960s' conflicts, Liana's worldview and her sense of self
are transformed. Heat; dust; the mingled scents of food, flowers,
people, spice markets; simmering tensions between Israelis and
Palestinians; and in the middle, a 14-year-old on the cusp of
womanhood. Leora Skolkin-Smith has written a
passionate, richly atmospheric novel whose intimacy reads like
a memoir. Tovah Feldshuh narrates with such authenticity
that listeners may be moved to talk back to the book. The mother's
longing for the Palestine of old; Liana's edgy girl-woman voice;
the mistrustful bargaining of a Palestinian shopkeeper. It's all
here, and it's terrific. A.C.S. --- AudioFile 2008, Portland,
Maine
Edges
was first published in 2005, by Glad Day Books,
a publishing house, founded by Grace Paley and
her husband Robert Nichols.
Edges
is a coming of age story about an adolescent girl visiting her
maternal relatives in the Jerusalem of 1963.
"Edges
(is) about the adventures of an adolescent girl in Israel
in the early 1960s. Her character's mother had grown up in British
Mandate Palestine, one of several factors making the memory bank
of this book so rich - appropriate for a place with almost too
much history to bear and retain one's sanity at the same time
Perhaps above all, the novel, told with restraint and poetic precision,
is about how we shoulder on (and wing it) under the weight of
history, family and public." -- Robert Whitcomb,
critic for the Providence Journal.
"Edges
is an elegantly written, quite moving novel that has a lot to
say about love, identity, history and the meaning of nationality.
The book is worth reading alone for its superb language, but it
is gripping and unforgettable as well in its storytelling and
evocation of place and emotions. It is a wonderful novel by an
author with a quite accomplished voice and style, one well deserving
a wide and receptive audience." -- Oscar Hijuelos,
author of Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Mambo King Sings Songs
of Love
"Edges"
is a dark and penetrating look at pre-1967 Israel and Palestine
through the eyes of a 14 year old Liana Bialik. After her American
father's suicide, Liana's Jerusalem-born mother decides to take
Liana and her sister back to her homeland, where her family had
lived for four generations. Once they get to Israel Liana, who
feels overwhelmed and suffocated by her mother, begins to detach
herself from her. She embarks on a mission of self-discovery to
learn why her mother does not speak about her father and why he
took his own life. Edges is well-written, powerful in both imagery
and subject matter" --Jewish Book World, Spring
2006
Vol.
24, Number 1
"Where,
and how and to whom do we really belong Skolkin's brilliant debut
novel is a hypnotic meditation on the ever-changing boundaries
of love and need. A coming of age story of the bond between a
young American and her powerful mother, etched in a wartime Mideast
as shifting and dangerous and mysterious as the Israeli desert."
--Caroline Leavitt, columnist, Reviewer, Boston Globe,
People Magazine, author of "Girls in Trouble"
"With
Edges, Leora Skolkin-Smith earns her place among the most gifted
of contemporary American authors. The novel is a reminder that
works of fiction can offer the depth, color, texture, passion
of a fine painting and a great symphony. This is more than a coming-of-age
story; it is a powerful and beautifully wrought account of passion
and hopefor a girl and for a country." --Victoria
Zackheim, Author, "The Boneweaver" Editor, Anthology
"The Other Woman", "For Keeps"
"A
feverish, sensual, remarkable book." --Meredith
Sue Willis
Edges
was nominated for the 2006 PEN/Faulkner Award by Grace Paley.
Awarded
a Stipend from the Pen/Faulkner Foundation
A
National Women Studies Association Conference Selection
"Bloomsbury
Review" Pick, 2006: "Favorite Books of the Last 25 Years"
A
Jewish Book Council Selection, 2005
Panelist,
"Israel in Fiction" The Miami International Book Fair,
2066
Panelist,
"War in Writing" , The Virginia Festival of the Book,
2006.
You
can enjoy listening to Tovah Feldshuh, accomplished
actress of stage and screen, bring Edges, to life in an audiobook
produced by Midsummer Sound Company -- a new
audio publisher dedicated to the production and promotion of the
spoken word and audio arts.
A
recipient of numerous awards, Tovah starred in Golda's
Balcony, which became the longest running one woman show
in the history of Broadway, in October of 2004. She also appears
in soon to be released films Mount of Olives and O Jerusalem.
Edges
was directed by three-time Grammy nominated and multi Audie award
winner Charles Potter. Edges was produced by Peabody Award winner
Marjorie Van Halteren -- who for ten years produced WNYC's The
Radio Stage and was the original producer of Selected Shorts at
Symphony Space in New York City.
Web
Site: http://www.leoraskolkinsmith.com
Contact
Details: Leora Skolkin-Smith
61 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York 10010
212-5323892
skolkin@nyc.rr.com