Shattered Dreams, Broken Promises: The Cost of Coming to America - Hardcover

Viner, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1597775371 ISBN 13: 9781597775373

Publisher: Phoenix Books, 2007

Synopsis

Viner traveled to various Eastern European countries to interview women of all ages and circumstances who are willing to do anything to get to America. The revealing and often unsettling tales of these women, told in their own words, shine a light on a growing population in the U.S.

About this title

About the Author

MICHAEL VINER is the author of three national bestsellers and has edited more than a dozen New York Times best-selling books. A long-time producer in the movie, television and recording industries, he is currently producing two movies for the Hallmark Channel, set for release later this year, and several films to be released in 2009. He has written and produced several Sidney Sheldon miniseries, and his music is featured in the major motion picture The Departed and has sold over 100 million copies, including the Billboard-charting single, “Hip-Hop Is Dead.”

From Publishers Weekly

Viner, a writer, editor and producer, has interviewed more than 200 women who immigrated from the former Soviet Union to America to find out, in his somewhat strange questions, "what makes them so unique" and "why so many of them [have] taken unusual sexual paths to accomplish their goals." Twenty-three of their firsthand accounts are included, comprising a sad litany of hardship and exploitation, with an emphasis on the harsh lives they left behind and the difficulty of forging a life in America. One woman, raised in poverty and tricked by an ad promising employment in elite New York City restaurants, was forced into stripping for a living to repay the agency that had deceived her. Not all the stories end tragically: one young Kiev woman fled to America when her husband was killed by the mob. After her Brooklyn roommate absconded with her documents, she became a prostitute but eventually married and adopted two children and runs her own escort service. These often tragic stories are moving, but without reporting on the larger context, as others have done, one has no idea how representative these stories are or what exactly they are intended to prove. (May)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Phoenix Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1597775371
• ISBN 13: 9781597775373
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 285