The Border of Truth

By Victoria Redel

Book Overview

At 41, single professor Sara Leader decides to create a family by adopting a child. After the adoption agency asks for details about her background, Sara reluctantly begins to probe her father's secret history -- in particular, his flight as a 17-year-old Holocaust refugee aboard a ship denied entry into America. The more she learns about her father's past, the more Sara feels the need to question him about what happened -- and the more she realizes how her father's secrets have shaped her own life. Alternating between a teenage boy's energetic letters to Eleanor Roosevelt and a daughter's sifting through the fragments of her father's traumatic wartime choices, Victoria Redel brilliantly imbues her characters with not only bravery and strength but with the humor to survive the pain of the past and the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582433666
• ISBN13: 9781582433660
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
• Length: 327 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Amazing writer, deep story

The Border of Truth: A Novel yes, for the ones that can't read in between all these different components of the book, it migh seem boring or confusing, Victoria is not only talented, but this book projects all fears, moments and parts of history that sometimes are hard to understand in one human brain. Loved it, will read and re-read again.

A Wonderful Novel!

One of those rare stories, beautifully written and totally absorbing. What do we really know about our parents, and choices they faced before we were born, in a different world? Victoria Redel's novel works on mulitiple levels, her characters are vibrant and alive. I can't wait for her next book!

Great Read

This book is an excellent take on a very different Holocaust story. Taking into account the impact that that time and place had on the future generations of a survivor's family. A hopeful and sorrowful story wrapped into one.

Gripping story, innovative structure

Sophisticated and at the same time very approachable, Redel's writing style and the innovative structure of this book make for an easy and yet gripping read. Hard to put down, but also broken into small enough chunks that you can pick it up for just a few minutes of guilty pleasure.

Extraordinary novel

I loved this book. There are so many different layers of stories here - stories one tells one's loved ones, stories one tells the public, stories one tells oneself, stories one tells one's reader - and there are so many different ways these stories are told - through letters, conversation, translation, and more. Redel weaves different narratives together seamlessly, getting us caught up in the emotional truth of each one even as we learn, bit by bit, that things are not at all what they seem. There are many ways we learn about big historical events. While this author obviously fictionalizes characters and events on this ship's journey, her characters help us understand how people make sense of what becomes history in their every day lives, and the enduring psychological imprint historical events leave on us - and our children. A beautiful, haunting, and deeply engrossing read! Melinda Fine, Ed.D. New York University