THE BELIEF IN Angels

THE BELIEF IN Angels

*** Winner 2015 THEODOR S. GEISEL AWARD ***
*** Winner of the 2015 SAN DIEGO BOOK AWARDS for General Fiction ***

A raw and haunting, coming-of-age novel about a courageous, young girl and her grandfather who share tragedy, unique survival skills and a divine intervention.

Jules Finn and Szaja Trautman know that sorrow can sink deeplyâ€”so deeply it can drown the soul.

Growing up in her parentsâ€™ crazy hippie household on a tiny island off the coast of Boston, Julesâ€™s imaginative sense of humor is the weapon she wields as a defense against the chaos of her familyâ€™s household. Somewhere between routine discipline with horsewhips, gun-waving gambling debt collectors, and LSD-laced breakfast cereal adventures, tragedy strikes a blow from which Jules may never recover.

Julesâ€™s story alternates with that of her grandfather, Szaja, an orthodox Jew who survives the murderous Ukranian pogroms of the 1920s, the Majdanek death camp, and the torpedoing of the Mefkura, a ship carrying refugees to Palestine. Unable to deal with the horrors he endures at the camp, Szaja develops a dissociative disorder and takes on the persona of a dead soldier from a burial ditch, using that manâ€™s thoughts to devise a plan to escape to America.

While Szajaâ€™s and Julesâ€™s sorrows are different on the surface, adversity requires them both to find the will to live despite the suffering in their livesâ€”and both encounter, in their darkest moments, what could be explained as serendipity or divine intervention. For Jules and Szaja, these experiences offer the hope the need in order to come to the rescue of their own fractured lives.

" . . . a young woman growing up in a dysfunctional family and her Holocaust-survivor grandfather are shaped by their experiences of surviving pain through moments of grace. Yates shows much skill in description, characterization and dialogue . . . insightful about the mental state of abused children . . . vividly evokes time and place. Well-written." -Kirkus Reviews

"A family saga . . . explores the darkest side of human nature--and the incontrovertible, uplifting power of hope." -Publishers Weekly

*** Winner of the 2014 USA BEST BOOK AWARD for Cross-Genre Fiction ***
*** Finalist in the 2015 INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS for Literary Fiction***
Country USA
Manufacturer Chenery Press
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-03-27
Format Kindle eBook
EANs 9780996382502

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Chenery Press
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-03-27
Format	Kindle eBook
EANs	9780996382502

You might also like...