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Winner 1997 Orange Prize for Fiction

Reviews

'This is a novel to lose yourself in; let the language pour over you, depositing its richness like waves lapping sand onto a beach. Michaels is a novelist of unusual and compelling power' The Times 'All but a handful of contemporary novels are dwarfed by its reach, its compassion, its wisdom ... This is a book to read many times. I simply can't imagine a better being published this year' Independent

YA‘A survivor of his family's annihilation by the Nazis, young Jakob Beer hides in a Polish forest alone and traumatized, longing for his parents and sister Bella. He stumbles upon a Greek scientist, Athos Roussos, and is smuggled to the Greek island of Zakynthos. The novel, written like a memoir, weaves together Jakob's memories of his family and his life with Athos into a tapestry of pain and eventual healing. Reminiscent of Elie Wiesel's Night (Bantam, 1982), Michaels's language creates haunting images of sorrow, pain, loss, and self-discovery. Jakob becomes a poet and survives both Athos's death and an ill-conceived marriage before he finds love and peace. Ben, a professor who is the child of deeply wounded Holocaust survivors, meets Beer before his death and, through the man's poetry and notes, confronts his own family horrors and finds reconciliation. The memoirs flow back and forth freely and may be difficult for some YAs to follow. However, this is a stunning first novel that attests to the strength of the human spirit.‘Carol DeAngelo, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Who says first novelists have it tough? Michaels's debut was a No. 1 best seller in her native Canada, where it has just been shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize. Protagonist Jakob Beer, who as a child was smuggled out of World War II Poland, looks back on life as a perennial "fugitive."