Wild Grapes - Paperback

by Miriam Flock (Author)

It's 1918, and Bluma Rappaport can't wait to set sail for America where her husband has gone to start a new life--ostensibly for their whole family. But when Sender fails to send money for their passage, Bluma takes matters into her own hands. She and her three daughters show up on his doorstep, which turns out to be broken, just one of the problems with the derelict farm he purchased. Though inspired by the Jewish back-to-the-land movement, Sender has been spending more time studying Torah than he has plowing and harvesting. Worse, Bluma's hopes for her daughters are soon shaken. Can she protect them from the hollow marriage and lack of education that have been her own fate? Facing challenges such as the Spanish flu pandemic, the anti-Semitism of a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, and the Great Depression, Bluma relies on her wits and her wry sense of humor to pull the family through.

Author Biography

Miriam Flock, an award-winning poet and non-fiction writer, begins a new phase of her writing life as a novelist with Wild Grapes, about the remarkable group of Jewish grape farmers who settled in Geneva, Ohio, between the turn of the century and the Great Depression. She is also the author of the poetry chapbook The Scientist's Wife (Finishing Line Press). Formerly COO of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, Miriam helped to found one of the most popular websites on ethical issues in the world. A product of the Stanford University Master's in Creative Writing Program, Miriam also has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia.