Yellow Boots

Description

A classic of Canadian literature, Yellow Boots traces the story of Lilli Landash, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, from her difficult childhood on a prairie homestead to her blossoming as a talented singer and self-reliant young woman. It begins in 1929 with an account of Lilli’s brush with death as a small and sickly girl, when we learn that her Bukovynian parents—Anton and Zenobia Landash—unsympathetically look upon her as the “runt” of the family. The book chronicles Lilli’s early teen years, when she was neglected and exploited by her family; describes her escape to the city at the age of sixteen to avoid a marriage opportunistically arranged by her father; and follows her progress from a domestic servant and factory worker to a successful dressmaker and performer with a budding singing career. The novel ends with Lilli’s triumphant return to her old village during a concert tour, and with her engagement to an Austrian choirmaster fifteen years her senior. Set in Manitoba during the 1930s, Yellow Boots successfully conveys both the charm and the backwardness of many Ukrainian peasant values, which Lysenko shows being gradually transformed and undermined by the changed circumstances of the new world. Co-published with NeWest Press.