April 1, 2015
An alcoholic who travels to Israel on a mission of atonement-to return a priceless brooch to an aging kibbutznik-is one of a disparate group of survivors with intertwined futures. Hope's debut, a saga of lives intersecting at Kibbutz Sadot Hador in 1994, accrues its momentum slowly, like a rolling stone. The story is spearheaded by 26-year-old Adam Soccorso, who has fled here from New York, searching for a woman named Dagmar, to whom his recently deceased grandfather had long ago tried to give a family heirloom, a medieval sapphire brooch decorated with pomegranates. Adam, a recovering alcoholic with some recent sins weighing heavily on his conscience, naively believes that handing over the brooch will make things right. The kibbutz community he joins includes international volunteers like him-including ruthless Ulya, from Belarus, whose goal is a glamorous life in Manhattan; and French-Canadian Claudette, freighted with her own long burden of misery-and locals like the musically talented Israeli soldier Ofir and Ziva, an elderly firebrand whose commitment to the original socialist ideals of the kibbutz has filled and shaped her life. They all carry a measure of suffering, and after giving plenty of time to each of their stories, Hope sets about mingling their various paths toward redemption. At a larger level, she uses the brooch to connect episodes of anti-Semitism down the ages. With its multiple mininarratives and characters who lack convincing depth, the story often remains earthbound; but Hope hits her stride as Claudette begins to outgrow her past and Ziva reluctantly embraces truths she has long denied. Not all the characters are granted absolution or even a definite fate, but the brooch ends up in the right home. Less convincing when striving for the epic, this solid novel achieves its strongest moments of emotional resonance in the presence of its older female characters.
April 1, 2015
In 1994 Kibbutz Sadot Hadar becomes a haven for several individuals trying to make better lives for themselves. Adam, an addiction-prone New Yorker, aims to deliver a gift to a woman his grandfather loved 50 years earlier on the kibbutz. Claudette, a thirtysomething refugee from a life in a French-Canadian orphanage, struggles to overcome obsessive-compulsive disorder. Ulya, a Russian immigrant pretending to be Jewish, schemes to get to Manhattan. Farid, a Palestinian farm worker, wants to open a restaurant. Ofir, a gifted teenage musician, has lost his hearing in a terrorist bombing. And finally Ziva, the kibbutz's octogenarian founder, endeavors to force the community to maintain the socialist idealism on which the settlement was originally founded. VERDICT As Hope deftly juggles the various stories and backstories of her protagonists and the 600-year-old history of the sapphire brooch that Adam wishes to deliver to his grandfather's mysterious lost love, the debut novelist, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, weaves an intricate tapestry of love and longing, failure and redemption. Not every character will be saved but readers will keep rooting for them.--Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 1, 2015
When Adam arrives at the kibbutz in Israel, he has only the clothes on his back and a priceless medieval brooch. By delivering the heirloom to his grandfather's long-lost love, he hopes to make amends for a past transgression and then move on. But Adam isn't the only restless person at the farm. Claudette, struggling with clinical OCD, longs to return to the Canadian orphanage in which she lived for 30 years. Ulya, who fled Russia by pretending to be Jewish, wishes to find her way to New York. Ziva, having escaped Nazi Germany to help found the kibbutz nearly 60 years ago, now faces the destruction of all her hard work at the end of her life. All of them must come to terms with the fragility of life to discover what they hold most important and stand a chance at redemption. This beautiful story of loss and hope sweeps artfully through 600 years of Jewish resilience. With its richly drawn, believable characters and its great sensitivity, Hope's novel is a striking debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)