Returning

ISBN: 1948403005

Author: Shahar, Yael

Condition: New

Dazzling... Returning is an extraordinary and challenging book on many levels.- Philip K. Jason, Washington Independent Review of BooksIntriguing! At times dark and haunting, at times lyrical and introspective, Returning resonates long after "the end"!- Dan Sofer, author of the Dry Bones Society trilogyReturning is a compelling, puzzling, remarkably honest story of a Jew's sins against his people and his tradition, and of his search for forgiveness and restoration.- Bill Tammeus, Faith MattersAlex died in Auschwitz, having betrayed his faith and his people. Now he's been given a single miraculous chance to put things right--but his fate is in the hands of a woman who only wants to forget, and a rabbi who isn't sure whether to be Alex's teacher or his judge.Sixty years after the Holocaust, Alex is a silent prisoner of his memories, desperately seeking atonement for what he did to survive.Determined to put himself on trial, Alex approaches a local rabbi to serve as his judge. Rabbi Ish-Shalom quickly finds that this case goes beyond anything he has ever experienced--Alex's story will challenge everything he thought he knew about death and the human soul. Now he must decide: Should he help Alex reach the oblivion he seeks? Or should he enlist the help of centuries of Jewish wisdom to bring Alex back into the world of the living? Two lives, inexplicably linked by dark memory, hang in the balance.Based on a true story, Returning is a haunting exploration of trauma and healing, and of how memory shapes our identities. In exploring the choices we make in a choiceless time, this compelling story shows the power of the human spirit to transcend even its own destruction. It will leave you changed forever.