Intricately plotted and anecdote-packed, Jennifer Gilmore’s debut novel, “Golden Country,” details the complex history of two intertwined families: the Blooms and the Brodskys. Both are Jewish, both touched with genius and dishonesty, as they strive toward the twin goals of material success and social acceptance in America.–Allegra Goodman

Golden Country is a likable and surprising debut novel from a young writer who has turned to the generations of her grandparents and great-grandparents for fictional inspiration.

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Gilmore, publicity director at Harcourt, should consider leaping full time to the other side of the publishing table. She has written a thinking person’s family saga that showcases the immigrant experience amid the growth of this country’s largest city.

Jennifer Gilmore’s novel Golden Country is the sort of novel I’m always on the lookout for: a solid story well told, filled with appealing but imperfect people, and set in a place and time that is recognizable but unfamiliar enough to be interesting.

For a first novel, Jennifer Gilmore’s "Golden Country" (Scribner, 315 pp., $25) is a real winner. This is a relaxed and expansive unfurling of the stories of three Jewish immigrant families in New York during four decades.

“Her ability to suspend multiple generations of three families over fifty years in only three hundred pages is a testament to her skill and energy – Golden Country is a good read and a great start from a promising new writer. “

For a first-time novelist, tackling a book that traces the intertwined stories of several generations of Jewish immigrants is ambitious, to say the least. Wouldn’t it be simpler to ease in with a breezy novel about bad boyfriends or career troubles?

GOLDEN COUNTRY, by Jennifer Gilmore. (Harvest/ Harcourt, $14.) Two intertwined Jewish families over a period of some 40 years are the focus of Gilmore’s exploration of what it means to achieve the American dream. One of the characters in this first novel has mob ties and makes “dirty money”; another invents a cleaning product. “What is success? What are its costs? What role do invention, self- invention and dramatic representation play?” our reviewer, Allegra Goodman, asked. She praised Gilmore’s ability to present “the many choices the characters face” among the “temptations and dazzling distractions of America, the golden country” in this well-researched and intricately plotted novel.

Golden Country
by Jennifer Gilmore. (Scribner, 315 pp. $25)

Dozens of novels have charted the history of Jewish immigrants in America, from Grandfather Isaac’s arrival at Ellis Island and his family’s movement from the congested streets of the Lower East Side, a generation’s respite in Brooklyn, and then to the upscale suburbs of Long Island. In most cases, traditional Judaism, with its tight network of restrictions, is no match for the freedom and possibility of America. Small wonder, then, that the steady movement toward assimilation trumps the Old World hands down. Small wonder, then, that one is tempted to dismiss such predictable, cardboard novels with a yawn: Been there, done that.

But Golden Country, Jennifer Gilmore’s impressive first novel, is an exception to the rule, partly because she takes the scaffolding of the immigrant novel and gives it delightful twists and a debunking that is as savvy as it is refreshing.

Jennifer Gilmore took an interesting route toward being a novelist. For years she was the publicity director at the book publisher Harcourt, and worked with authors such as Umberto Eco, Gunter Grass and Yann Martel. As she was promoting other people’s books, she began writing her own.

Her first novel, "Golden Country" came out last year and was named a New York Times Notable Book, as well as being a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. The book, which Gilmore says was inspired in part by her own family, is the story of three Jewish immigrants in New York City in the early and mid-20th century and how their lives intertwine. Broadway and organized crime play important roles as well.

When Jews at the turn of the last century wistfully spoke of the goldene medina (golden country), they meant just one place: America. The phrase evoked images of a land of "freedom, justice, opportunity — and protection against pogroms," wrote Leo Rosten in his 1968 classic, "The Joys of Yiddish." But when "spoken in irony or sarcasm," he added, the goldene medina also came to signify "a miraculous hope that ends in disappointment."

Which makes the title of Jennifer Gilmore’s debut novel, "Golden Country" (Scribner, 2006), especially apt. In her intricately plotted story, Gilmore deftly weaves fact into fiction as she traces the fortunes of three intertwined families of Jewish immigrants in early 20th century New York. The result is a compelling portrait of hopes, both realized and dashed, that explores questions of identity, self-invention, women’s roles and the definition of success.

This is an excellent book about the Jewish immigrant experience in America.
Armchair Interviews says: This historical fiction is a wonderful, can’t-put-down read!

"All our parents were wrong, thought Joseph; they never left their little street. They had no vision of the future. Everyone had been so scared. He too had been scared, growing up scrawny and taught to fight not with his fists but with words, words in a neighborhood where language meant nothing."

Gilmore, whose day job is serving as director of publicity at Harcourt, definitely knows what she is doing, admirably exploring the lives of her characters and the choices they make in pursuit of the ever-elusive American dream.

Gilmore succeeds with a voice that is both touching and refreshingly funny. In a story that stretches from the 1920s to the 1960s, Gilmore hits on the highs of Irving Berlin’s Broadway, the lows of Jewish organized crime, and the bittersweet results of an American Dream revised.

This impressive debut, already a book-club favourite, is a powerful look at the American immigrant experience as seen through the twined tales of three vivid Jewish characters, again in New York City, in the first half of the 20th century. An astute and funny account of the fears and hopes attendant on landing in a country that is – for you – nothing but promise.