Winner of the 2008 AWP Award for the Novel
From 1941 to 1947, eighteen thousand Italian prisoners of war were sent to Australia. The Italian surrender that followed the downfall of Mussolini had created a novel circumstance: prisoners who theoretically were no longer enemies. Many of these exiles were sent to work on isolated farms, unguarded.
The Paperbark Shoe is the unforgettable story of Gin Boyle―an albino, a classically trained pianist, and a woman with a painful past. Disavowed by her wealthy stepfather, her unlikely savior is the farmer Mr. Toad―a little man with a taste for women's corsets. Together with their two children, they weather the hardship of rural life and the mockery of their neighbors. But with the arrival of two Italian prisoners of war, their lives are turned upside down. Thousands of miles from home, Antonio and John find themselves on Mr. and Mrs. Toad's farm, exiles in the company of exiles. The Paperbark Shoe is a remarkable novel about the far-reaching repercussions of war, the subtle violence of displacement, and what it means to live as a captive―in enemy country, and in one's own skin.

The Paperbark Shoe: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Goldbloom, Goldie

Literary

Picador

“A novel of wisdom and uncertainty, of love in its greater and lesser forms, and of the struggle between how it should be and how it is. It is impossible not to be moved.” ―Amy Bloom, author of White Houses 
"This book brings the reader into the heart of a close-knit Jewish family and their joys, loves, and sorrows . . . A marvelous book by a masterful writer.” ―Audrey Niffenegger, author of Her Fearful Symmetry and The Time Traveler’s Wife 
"As beautiful as it is unexpected.” ―Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl Through one woman's life at a moment of surprising change, the award-winning author Goldie Goldbloom tells a deeply affecting, morally insightful story and offers a rare look inside Brooklyn's Chasidic community
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just a block or two up from the East River on Division Avenue, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her ten children range in age from thirteen to thirty-nine. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and Yidel, a scribe in such demand that he makes only a few Torah scrolls a year, live on the third. Wed when Surie was sixteen, they have a happy marriage and a full life, and, at the ages of fifty-seven and sixty-two, they are looking forward to some quiet time together. 
Into this life of counted blessings comes a surprise. Surie is pregnant. Pregnant at fifty-seven. It is a shock. And at her age, at this stage, it is an aberration, a shift in the proper order of things, and a public display of private life. She feels exposed, ashamed. She is unable to share the news, even with her husband. And so for the first time in her life, she has a secret―a secret that slowly separates her from the community.
Goldie Goldbloom's On Division is an excavation of one woman's life, a story of awakening at middle age, and a thoughtful examination of the dynamics of self and collective identity. It is a steady-eyed look inside insular communities that also celebrates their comforts. It is a rare portrait of a long, happy marriage. And it is an unforgettable new novel from a writer whose imagination is matched only by the depth of her humanity.

On Division: A Novel

United States

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Product Description 
** Winner of the 2020 Jewish Fiction Award **“A novel of wisdom and uncertainty, of love in its greater and lesser forms, and of the struggle between how it should be and how it is. It is impossible not to be moved.”―Amy Bloom, author of White Houses "This book brings the reader into the heart of a close-knit Jewish family and their joys, loves, and sorrows . . . A marvelous book by a masterful writer.”―Audrey Niffenegger, author of Her Fearful Symmetry and The Time Traveler’s Wife Through one woman's life at a moment of surprising change, the award-winning author Goldie Goldbloom tells a deeply affecting, morally insightful story and offers a rare look inside Brooklyn's Chasidic communityOn Division Avenue, just a block or two up from the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her ten children range in age from thirteen to thirty-nine. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and Yidel, a scribe in such demand that he makes only a few Torah scrolls a year, live on the third. Wed when Surie was sixteen, they have a happy marriage and a full life, and, at the ages of fifty-seven and sixty-two, they are looking forward to some quiet time together. Into this life of counted blessings comes a surprise. Surie is pregnant. Pregnant at fifty-seven. It is a shock. And at her age, at this stage, it is an aberration, a shift in the proper order of things, and a public display of private life. She feels exposed, ashamed. She is unable to share the news, even with her husband. And so for the first time in her life, she has a secret―a secret that slowly separates her from the community.Goldie Goldbloom's On Division is an excavation of one woman's life, a story of awakening at middle age, and a thoughtful examination of the dynamics of self and collective identity. It is a steady-eyed look inside insular communities that also celebrates their comforts. It is a rare portrait of a long, happy marriage. And it is an unforgettable new novel from a writer whose imagination is matched only by the depth of her humanity. 
 Review 
** Winner of the 2020 Jewish Fiction Award **Chosen for the One Bay One Book Program at the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco"A quietly, finely wrought story about how to move beyond restrictions even while living within them . . . Wonderfully entrancing, a book about difference that feels universal."―Bethanne Patrick, Lit Hub"[An] elegant novel about a Hasidic woman cocooned by her close-knit faith community, yet increasingly alienated from it . . . [Goldie Goldbloom's] portrait of Surie and the Chassids of Williamsburg glows with sympathy and authenticity . . . Goldbloom knows the Yiddishisms, the customs, the constraints ― and the longings that chafe against them."―Julia M. Klein, Forward"Richly imagined . . . Goldbloom captures the full scale of human emotion in this family in a contemporary ultra-Orthodox community as Surie contends with this news, and somehow taps into the particular demands of Chassidic life, as well as the universality of shifting generational boundaries."―The National Book Review"Unique . . . The story revolves around Surie Eckstein, a 57-year-old matriarch who suddenly doubts some of the restrictive mores of her Hasidic shtetl in Brooklyn; yet it conveys an abiding affection for this anachronistic world . . . This novel is really about the struggle to bridge differences."―The Economist"The author, a member of the Chasidic community, writes with accuracy, authenticity, and respect―celebrating the positive aspects of the community with beauty, warmth, and love while also exposing negative, harmful, and shameful practices. The result is a multi-layered story of how secrets can shake even the most secure and close-knit families that is accessible to readers both familiar and unfamiliar with the insular world of ul

On Division

Picador Paper

"A novel of wisdom and uncertainty, of love in its greater and lesser forms, and of the struggle between how it should be and how it is. It is impossible not to be moved." (Amy Bloom, author of White Houses) "This book brings the reader into the heart of a close-knit Jewish family and their joys, loves, and sorrows.... A marvelous book by a masterful writer." (Audrey Niffenegger, author of Her Fearful Symmetry and The Time Traveler's Wife) "As beautiful as it is unexpected." (Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl) Through one woman's life at a moment of surprising change, the award-winning author Goldie Goldbloom tells a deeply affecting, morally insightful story and offers a rare look inside Brooklyn's Chasidic community In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just a block or two up from the East River on Division Avenue, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her 10 children range in age from 13 to 39. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and Yidel, a scribe in such demand that he makes only a few Torah scrolls a year, live on the third. Wed when Surie was 16, they have a happy marriage and a full life, and, at the ages of 57 and 62, they are looking forward to some quiet time together. Into this life of counted blessings comes a surprise. Surie is pregnant. Pregnant at 57. It is a shock. And at her age, at this stage, it is an aberration, a shift in the proper order of things, and a public display of private life. She feels exposed, ashamed. She is unable to share the news, even with her husband. And so for the first time in her life, she has a secret - a secret that slowly separates her from the community. Goldie Goldbloom's On Division is an excavation of one woman's life, a story of awakening at middle age, and a thoughtful examination of the dynamics of self and collective identity. It is a steady-eyed look inside insular communities that also celebrates their comforts. It is a rare portrait of a long, happy marriage. And it is an unforgettable new novel from a writer whose imagination is matched only by the depth of her humanity.

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

In the wake of a thwarted career as a concert pianist and the accompanying emotional fallout, Gin accepts a marriage proposal from the peculiar Mr. Toad. But nothing from the albino Gin Toad's upbringing in the bourgeois drawing rooms of Perth has prepared her for a hardscrabble existence on a subsistence farm in the Australian outback. In her Wyalkatchem exile, she explores what it means to be a mother and wife, an underappreciated musician, and the town freak. She walks on eggshells to accomodate the cantankerous Toad and comes to accept her life without independence, music, or love--until Antonio arrives. The Italian POWs forced into the Toads' service change the landscape of Gin's world. She is haunted by the memory of her first child's death; Antonio is exiled from a country and family he cherishes, banished to Western Australia while WWII threatens all he holds dear. In their mutual isolation and loss, the growing intimacy between Gin and Antonio becomes their escape from hardship--but will it also be their undoing?

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