November 30:
David Biro, This Magnificent Dappled Sea, 2020
In a small Italian village, nine-year-old Luca Taviano catches a stubborn cold and is subsequently diagnosed with leukemia. After an exhaustive search, a match turns up 3000 miles away in the form of an unlikely donor: a rabbi in Brooklyn, New York, who is suffering from a debilitating crisis of faith. As Luca’s young nurse risks her career and races against time to help save the spirited redheaded boy, she uncovers terrible secrets from World War II — secrets that reveal how a Catholic boy could have Jewish genes. Can inheritance be transcended by accidents of love? That is the question at the heart of This Magnificent Dappled Sea, a novel that challenges the idea of identity and celebrates the ties that bind us together.
David Biro has a medical degree from Columbia University and a doctorate in Literature from Oxford University. He is a Professor of Dermatology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center where he also teaches medical humanities. Dr. Biro has written two highly acclaimed books: One Hundred Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient (2000) and The Language of Pain: Finding Words, Compassion, and Relief (2010). He has published articles in The New York Times, London Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Slate.
December 14:
Lauren Fox, Send for Me, 2021
NOW VIA ZOOM
An achingly beautiful work of historical fiction that moves between Germany on the eve of World War II and present-day Wisconsin, unspooling a thread of love, longing, and the powerful bonds of family. Send For Me is a testament to the intensity of motherhood, heightened in the context of intergenerational grief. It is a novel about how the past lives in the way relationships are formed, patterns are repeated or broken, and names are passed down.
Lauren Fox, who earned her M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota, is the author of the novels Days of Awe, Still Life with Husband, and Friends Like Us. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Parenting, Psychology Today, The Rumpus, and Salon. She lives in Milwaukee.
January 11:
Mitchell James Kaplan, Rhapsody, 2021
Set in Jazz Age New York City, this stunning work of fiction explores the timeless bond between two brilliant, strong-willed artists. George Gershwin left behind not just a body of work unmatched in popular musical history, but a woman who loved him with all her heart, knowing all the while that he belonged not to her, but to the world.
Mitchell James Kaplan is the award-winning author of the novels By Fire, By Water and Into the Unbounded Night. A graduate of Yale, he has lived in Paris and Los Angeles, and currently lives in Roanoke, Virginia.
