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The Invisible Wall

A Love Story That Broke Barriers

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

This enchanting true story, written when the author was ninety-three, is a moving tale of working-class life, social divide, and forbidden love on the eve of the first World War.

The narrow street on which Harry grew up appeared identical to countless other working-class English neighborhoods—except for the invisible wall that ran down the center of the street, dividing the Jewish families on one side from the Christians on the other. The geographical distance may have been yards, but socially, it was miles. Families on either side did not speak or meet.

But when Harry's older sister fell for the boy across the street, Harry became a go-between for the lovers, crossing the great divide to hide their secret. When the truth inevitably came out, Harry had to decide, at a very young age, what he believed was morally right.

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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Bernstein's remarkable memoir of an obscure Lancashire mill town before, during, and after WWI would be a daunting task for any narrator. John Lee superbly captures the intricacies of various accents--the young Russian rabbi, the guest from Leeds, the headmaster of the fancy school, the drunk shopkeepers. The one place he falters is in his pronunciation of a few Hebrew words, but that can easily be forgiven in this masterful presentation. Writing when he was already in his 90s, Bernstein is one of the last people alive who can recall the smallest details, the gestures and innuendos, of a landscape and culture already extinct. R.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 11, 2006
      Bernstein writes, "There are few rules or unwritten laws that are not
      \t\t broken when circumstances demand, and few distances that are too great to be
      \t\t traveled," about the figurative divide ("geographically... only a few yards,
      \t\t socially... miles and miles") keeping Jews and Christians apart in the poor
      \t\t Lancashire mill town in England where he was raised. In his affecting debut
      \t\t memoir, the nonagenarian gives voice to a childhood version of himself who
      \t\t witnesses his older sister's love for a Christian boy break down the invisible
      \t\t wall that kept Jewish families from Christians across the street. With little
      \t\t self-conscious authorial intervention, young Harry serves as a wide-eyed guide
      \t\t to a world since dismantled—where "snot rags" are handkerchiefs, children
      \t\t enter the workforce at 12 and religion bifurcates everything, including
      \t\t industry. True to a child's experience, it is the details of domestic life that
      \t\t illuminate the tale—the tenderness of a mother's sacrifice, the nearly
      \t\t Dickensian angst of a drunken father, the violence of schoolyard anti-Semitism,
      \t\t the "strange odors" of "forbidden foods" in neighbor's homes. Yet when major
      \t\t world events touch the poverty-stricken block (the Russian revolution claims
      \t\t the rabbi's son, neighbors leave for WWI), the individual coming-of-age is
      \t\t intensified without being trivialized, and the conversational account takes on
      \t\t the heft of a historical novel with stirring success.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:950
  • Text Difficulty:5-6

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