Fugitive Pieces

In 1940 a boy bursts from the mud of a war-torn Polish city, where he has buried himself to hide from the soldiers who killed his family. His name is Jakob Beer. He is seven years old. Although he should have shared the fate of the other Jews in his village, he has not only survived but been rescued by a Greek geologist, who does not recognize the boy as human until he begins to cry. With this electrifying image, Anne Michaels ushers us into her acclaimed novel of loss, memory, history, and redemption. Following Jakob across two continents, we witness his transformation from a half-wild casualty of the Holocaust to an artist who extracts meaning from its abyss.