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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'From the civil rights struggle in the United States to the Nazi crimes against humanity in Europe, there are more stories than people passing each other every day on the bustling streets of every crowded city. Only some survive to become history.
'Recently released from prison, Lamont Williams, an African American probationary janitor in a Manhattan hospital and father of a little girl he can't locate, strikes up an unlikely friendship with an elderly patient, a Holocaust survivor who had been a prisoner in Auschwitz-Birkenau. A few kilometres uptown, Australian historian Adam Zignelik, an untenured Columbia professor, finds both his career and his long-term romantic relationship falling apart. Emerging out of the depths of his own personal history, Adam sees, in a promising research topic suggested by an American World War II veteran, the beginnings of something that might just save him professionally and perhaps even personally. As these two men try to survive in early twenty-first-century New York, history comes to life in ways neither of them could have foreseen. Two very different paths - Lamont's and Adam's - lead to one greater story as The Street Sweeper, in dealing with memory, love, guilt, heroism, the extremes of racism and unexpected kindness, spans the twentieth century to the present, and spans the globe from New York to Melbourne, Chicago to Auschwitz.
'Epic in scope, this is a remarkable feat of storytelling.' (From publisher's website.)
Notes
-
Dedication:In memory of
Rosa Robota, Estusia Wajcblum, Ala Gertner, Regina Safirztain
and
Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins,
who all died from different manifestations of the same disease. -
Epigraph:
Mountains bow down to this grief...
But hope keeps singing from afar.
-Anna Akhmatova
-
The dedication refers to individuals killed during the Holocaust and to other killed in a racially motivated attack by the Klu Klux Klan (16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, 1963).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
While the Drum Beats, 'Stop the Boats'
2013
single work
autobiography
— Appears in: A Country Too Far : Writings on Asylum Seekers 2013; (p. 21-24) -
Silent Triumph of the Individual : Social Investigation through Empathy in Elliot Perlman's Three Dollars, Seven Types of Ambiguity, and The Street Sweeper
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 27 no. 2 2013; (p. 197-202)'The novels of Elliot Perlman encompass a wide variety of social observations and criticism in both contemporary and historical settings. Each novel, Three Dollars, Types of Ambiguity, and The Street Sweeper, most definitely constitutes a recognition of suffering and a cry against inhumanity. However, the principal purpose of these novels is not to wallow in awfulness, nor is it solely to educate readers as to the harder realities of life. Here, Duthie examines Perlman's three novels. ' (Publication summary)
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Book Review – The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Booklover Book Reviews 2012;
— Review of The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel -
Books of the Week
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Mail , 30 September 2012; (p. 37)
— Review of The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel -
Stop the Boats
2012
single work
prose
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 71 no. 2 2012; (p. 9-11)
-
Untitled
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 1 October 2011; (p. 24)
— Review of The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel -
Untitled
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , September vol. 91 no. 3 2011; (p. 24)
— Review of The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel -
What Happened Here
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 335 2011; (p. 45-46)
— Review of The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel -
Review of the Week
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 16 October 2011; (p. 16)
— Review of The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel -
Black-and-White Story Needs Shades of Grey
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22-23 October 2011; (p. 20)
— Review of The Street Sweeper 2011 single work novel -
Swept Up in History
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 1 October 2011; (p. 23-24) -
A Judgement Issue
2011
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 1 October 2011; (p. 26-27) The Sydney Morning Herald , 29-30 October 2011; (p. 39) -
Author Swept Away by Blair's Friendship
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 18 October 2011; (p. 20) -
Eight Years in Anticipation
Shane Strange
(interviewer),
2011
single work
interview
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , September vol. 91 no. 3 2011; (p. 28) -
The Silver Age of Fiction
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 70 no. 4 2011; (p. 110-115)‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2013 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2012 shortlisted Australian Booksellers Association Awards — BookPeople Book of the Year
- 2012 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Book of the Year
- 2012 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
- 2012 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
-
New York (City),
New York (State),
cUnited States of America (USA),cAmericas,
- Melbourne, Victoria,
-
Chicago,
Illinois,
cUnited States of America (USA),cAmericas,
-
Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Occupied Poland (1939-1945),
cPoland,cEastern Europe, Europe,
- 2000-2099