Summary:
Yakov Bok, a poor Jew, abandoned by his childless and bitter young wife, sets out from the Russian provinces to Kiev, "a dangerous city," his father-in-law tells him, "full of churches and anti-Semites."

Confident that his skills as a handyman will enable him to support himself adequately, he arrives in the city on a snowy day knowing not a soul. He aids a man who has fallen unconscious, face down in the snow, despite seeing on the lapel of his coat a Black Hundreds pin identifying this person as a member of a rabidly anti-Jewish society. Yakov hides his Jewish background from the man he has helped and accepts a job as overseer of the man's lumberyard, a situation which requires him to live onsite and in an area of the city which is off limits to Jews.

He becomes the scapegoat suspect in the torture-murder of a child and spends 3 horrifying years in a Russian prison under dreadful circumstances awaiting the issue of an indictment and the commencement of his trial.

He refuses repeatedly to confess to the crime he did not commit, even though by doing so his jailers have promised perhaps he will receive a degree of clemency.

I would recommend this book!

Why?
The novel won both the 1967 National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and is a masterful treatment of both racial prejudice and also the resilience of a human spirit. Publishing in 1966, and set in the time of Czar Nicholas II, this grim yet hopeful, eloquently written tale is a fable for our time as we cope with the 21st century in which religious differences threaten to tear the world asunder.

Employee Initials: CL Review Date: July 2004

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