The Street Sweeper

Editorial Reviews

"The Street Sweeper is a big book, a brave book, a humane and liberal book in a period of history when those values are being derided by conservatives of several schools" - Don Anderson, Australian Book Review

"...In heartbreaking detail, this emotional novel offers a fascinating insight into the best and worst of human nature, memory, racism and heroism. Perlman, an acclaimed Australian author, is fast developing a reputation as a modern literary master. And it is well deserved." - Madison Australia

"A heartless doctor, a street sweeper, a stalled academic, an old man with a story to tell that outranks all our present day concerns, engage with one another in this spellbinding novel. Today we are too busy and too distracted to tell or hear a story, to find or be a listener with all the time in the world. Thus knowledge vanishes as memory fades and life comes to an end. This is a book to be read in a quiet place and slowly" - Annabel Lawson, Australian Country Style

"The Street Sweeper's fiction is grounded in facts, and facts of the most momentous kind" - Don Anderson, Australian Book Review

"This is absolutely the best fiction book I have read this year. I loved every minute of it even though at times it made me gasp for breath (to the extent that I was asked at the train station if I was OK). I can't get out of my head some of these images and even if these stories are not even remotely connected to my personal memories in some way they are now my personal memories.

The narrative is gripping, the characters are moving but what I love the most is the sense of people (often quite ordinary people). Being part of history, making it into a living, breathing fabric of memories, is something we all have the responsibility of remembering and sharing, of making sure that 'we tell everyone what happened there' and to these people so their unimaginable suffering, pain and heroism is never ever forgotten, is central.

I also loved all the incredible interrelations between stories, the fact that the author was able to bring all these cultures, backgrounds and religions together, united in a simple human understanding of one another, while telling and sharing the stories about the great divide that was created by just the same kind of human beings.

There is truly an amazing sense of connection in this book which really makes one walk away from the experience of reading it shaken but still very hopeful." - Anna O'Grady, Category Manager Books, LS Travel Retail Pacific

"Wonderfully rich, engaging and multilayered." - Washington Post

"An expertly told novel of life in immigrant America - and of the terrible events left behind in the old country... Perlman's long tale, spanning decades, is suspenseful and perfectly told in many voices, without a false note. It deals with big issues of memory, race, human fallibilities and the will to survive against the odds." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The Street Sweeper, Elliot Perlman's monumental and, at times, mesmerizing novel, is a meditation of memory - and its relationship to history... [Here] Perlman burnishes his reputation as a masterful storyteller who captures the cadences of consciousness and conversation and the varieties and vagaries of cruelty, courage and compassion... You will, in all likelihood, find it unforgettable." - Jerusalem Post

"Excellent...Harrowing, humane and brilliant." - The Times (UK)

"Perlman deftly navigates... complicated waters, moving back and forth in time without having to take narrative responsibility for the course of history. In so doing, he brilliantly makes personal both the Holocaust and the civil rights movement, and crafts a moving and literate page-turner." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)