The Promised Land

By Mary Antin and Werner Sollors

An extraordinary popular success when it was first published in 1912, The Promised Land is a classic account of the Jewish American immigrant experience. Mary Antin emigrated with her family from the
Eastern European town of Polotzk to Boston in 1894, when she was twelve years old. Preternaturally inquisitive, Antin was a provocative observer of the identity-altering contrasts between Old World and
New. Her narrative — of universal appeal and rich in its depictions of both worlds — captures a large-scale sociocultural landscape and paints a profound self-portrait of an iconoclast seeking to reconcile her
heritage with her newfound identity as an American citizen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Jun 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781101659571

Mary Antin

Mary Antin (1881-1949) was a writer and activist whose work reflected the American immigrant experience. Born in the Russian Empire but raised in the U.S., Antin was a bright child whose exceptional writing quickly impressed her teachers. In 1899, she published her first book, From Plotzk to Boston, which was an early detailing of her emigration story. She was then encouraged to write an autobiography, which became The Promised Land, her most popular and acclaimed work.

Reviews for The Promised Land

[auntieknickers · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Continuing my project of reading all the Edgar Best Novel winners, or in some cases re-reading them, I'm up to 1977. It's taken about a year to cover 23 years of books, but of course I've read other things as well.

It has been some time since I read any of Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels, which I used to devour eagerly as soon as they appeared. I don't really know why I stopped reading them. But perhaps it's significant that, although I know I read PROMISED LAND soon after it appeared, I had no memory of its plot at all. This is especially surprising since one of the major plot elements -- the radical feminist bankrobbers -- had many points in common with a real-life case involving two women I knew slightly in college, which had occurred in 1971, so one would think that would have stuck in my mind.

PROMISED LAND is neither a mystery nor a thriller. The only mystery -- where is the runaway wife Spenser's been hired to locate? -- is solved quite early in the book. Since it's a series book, we can be sure that Spenser will find a way to deal with all the bad guys. Parker was recently featured on the NPR series of interviews "Crime in the City" as the exemplar of a Boston setting. This book's setting, in Boston and Cape Cod, while well enough done, is nothing special in my opinion. One is led to the conclusion that it's the main characters -- Spenser, Susan Silverman, and Hawk -- who are the main attraction in Parker's books.

Perhaps Spenser made such a splash because he was, in some ways, a classic private eye -- full of wisecracks, but with an internal code of honor that he never breached -- a Philip Marlowe for the 70s? Yet, he was also an accomplished cook, took good care of himself, and was able to maintain a relationship with the equally complicated Susan Silverman -- not quite the loner with the empty refrigerator who had become a bit of a cliche by the early 70s.

Also, the books move fast. Parker does write in a way that keeps the pages turning.

I just have to say a word about Parker's descriptions of the clothing the characters are wearing. The reader really is aware that it's 1976 when men's leisure suits and overblown hairdos are described in such loving (and as far as I could tell, unironic) detail. If you remember wearing such things it will make you cringe! Even Spenser himself has a shirt with a long, pointed collar that he carefully arranges over the lapels of his sport coat. Just thinking of the polyesters who died to make the clothing is enough to make one weep! Oddly, the women's clothing is described as being relatively timeless, at least in this book.
When we were constant readers of the Spenser books, both my husband and I were very, very busy. We had small children, jobs, night classes, and bus commutes. Parker's novels were good ones to read on the bus, and his life of freedom combined with good food and drink (and sex with no kids) was a good escape. Now, we have more time to read a little more carefully and think about what we're reading, and Spenser no longer satisfies. Perhaps that's what was happening societally when this book won the Edgar -- we were all at a bit of a loss after Vietnam and Watergate, inflation and women's liberation were changing the ways our home lives played out -- Spenser's life looked pretty good. Men wanted to be Spenser, women wanted to be Susan Silverman, and hey -- there are still times I wish I had a buddy like Hawk!

[bearette24 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was a very interesting Spenser book. The focus was more on feminism, midlife crises, crumbling marriages, and Spenser's fairly new relationship with Susan, than it was on crime or being a tough guy (though this was included toward the end, seemingly as an afterthought). It took place in the 70s, when i was born. I enjoyed seeing how men and women related to each other then and reading the 70s slang (though some of it was a little impenetrable). There were some errors in the Kindle edition, but it was still a good reading experience.

[chrisconway_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I recently decided to reread this Spenser, which I originally read in High School, in 1983 or 1984. This novel is the third or fourth in the series but should count as the first because Hawk is introduced and the whole Susan Silverman relationship comes into focus in a recognizable way (before becoming rote several novels later, perhaps after A Catskill Eagle). The dialogue is not as funny as later Spensers but this one has more heart than most of the later ones.

[stevealdous · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Neat story, macho characters and some witty dialogue paper over some of the more clunky philosophising.

[raizel_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maybe happy, well-adjusted married people don't seek out private investigators or get involved with crazy women's liberation types. Spenser, with the help of Hawk and Susan Silverman, once again does the best he can to make things work out for his clients: Justice may be done, but legal crimes are not always punished.

[the_unnamable · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Our smart-aleck hero of the one name survives his fourth outing. And this one marks the arrival of Spenser's other half/negative, Hawk, whom I assume is integral to the rest of the series being as Avery Brooks played him on the television show.The story's just fine, Spenser's drenched in enough booze and (monogamous) sex to stun Andre the Giant, yet he somehow manages to suture a couple of shady dealings together for everyone's benefit.What's most interesting about this one is that the novel is largely a conversation about masculinity--there's a feminista group a la the Black Panthers (the Pink Panthers?). What makes Spenser? Honor? Charm? Being a horse's ass?I honestly can't wait to read the next one.

[jimbrewington_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fun to read. Some laughs. Easy to follow. Surprise last chapter.

[amelish · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We get it, you were precocious and lucky. And grew up to be earnest.

Mary Antin's memoir about early childhood in a Russian Jewish community, emigrating to Boston (?) with her family, and the process by which American patriotism replaced Judaism as the definitive faith of her character and life. There's an overall tone of nerdy arrogance to the writing, reminiscent of Annie Dillard's and Agatha Christie's writings about childhood, though sadly minus most of the wry humor. But here and there are some beautiful passages evocative of landscape and the individual's smallness relative to the vastness of cultural and national identity.

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a wonderful and complicated story of Antin's childhood as she lives first in Russia and then in America. It is a picture of immigration, the search for what is the American dream however it is told, a great appreciation of learning, and a story of all the things that in the end matter more than either wealth of position. Antin's prose is graceful and literary, as well as entertaining throughout. It may start slowly, but this book is worth reading as both historical testimony and document as well as personal narrative and autobiography.