The Invention of Exile: A Novel
by Manko, Vanessa
- Used
- Fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Fine/Fine
- ISBN 10
- 1594205884
- ISBN 13
- 9781594205880
- Seller
-
Stanley, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Austin Voronkov is many things. He is an engineer, an inventor, an immigrant from Russia to Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1913, where he gets a job at a rifle factory. At the house where he rents a room, he falls in love with a woman named Julia, who becomes his wife and the mother to his two children. When Austin is wrongly accused of attending anarchist gatherings his limited grasp of English condemns him to his fate as a deportee; retreating with his family to his home in Russia, they become embroiled in the civil war and must flee once again, to Mexico. While Julia and the children are eventually able to return to the United States, Austin becomes indefinitely stranded in Mexico City because of the black mark on his record. He keeps a daily correspondence with Julia as they each exchange their hopes and fears for the future and as they struggle to remain a family across a distance of two countries. Austin becomes convinced that his engineering designs will be awarded patents, thereby paving the way for the government to approve his return and award his long sought-after American citizenship. At the same time he becomes convinced that an FBI agent working for the House Committee for Un-American Activities is monitoring his every move, with the intent of blocking any possible return to the United States. Austin’s and Julia’s struggles build to crisis and heartrending resolution in this dazzling, sweeping debut. The novel is based in part on Vanessa Manko’s family history and a trove of hidden letters that serve as a kind of inheritanceletters from a grandfather she never knew. Manko uses this history as a jumping-off point for the novel, which deals with themes of exile and invention and explores how loss reshapes and transforms lives. It is a profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Old Scrolls Book Shop - Biblio (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 026208
- Title
- The Invention of Exile: A Novel
- Author
- Manko, Vanessa
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Edition
- First Edition, First Printing.
- ISBN 10
- 1594205884
- ISBN 13
- 9781594205880
- Publisher
- Penguin Press
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2014
- Keywords
- FICTION, NOVEL, DEBUT FIRST EDITION, PRINTING, IMMIGRATION, MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS, MEXICO, RUSSIAN IMMIGRANTS
- Bookseller catalogs
- Society; historical fiction;
Terms of Sale
Old Scrolls Book Shop - Biblio
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About the Seller
Old Scrolls Book Shop - Biblio
About Old Scrolls Book Shop - Biblio
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Price Clipped
- When a book is described as price-clipped, it indicates that the portion of the dust jacket flap that has the publisher's...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...