Dawid's cast of characters spans a variety of ages, nationalities, genders and sensibilities. Her wanderers traverse continents; people collide with one another in France, Greece, China, New Mexico, upstate New York. A Palestinian lesbian meets her Jewish doppelganger in a Salt Lake City bar; in the title story, a lonely, middle-aged man longs only for the company of his dog, Lily, during a suicidal drive through the snowbound Nevada desert. (Mimi Albert)

Lily in the Desert

Literature & Fiction

Dawid, Annie

Contemporary

Carnegie-Mellon University Press

York Ferry

United States

Cane Hill Pr

"This sprawling, warm-hearted story spans six continents and one hundred years, from the 1900 Sabbath table of Reizl and Lazar Solomon and their young sons, in Radautz, Bukovina, to a glorious millennial reunion in Paris. "Dawid presents the family history in twenty-four accounts of varying length, rich in personal vignettes though mindful of the overriding historical arc. Here is Hans, a grandson of Reizl and Lazar, 'resident alien' of Tientsin, North China,1939; Berthold, another grandson, on day 555 of his imprisonment in a Communist prison cell, 1950; great-granddaughters Toni and Marguerite, 'les Belles Jumelles,' internationally acclaimed Belgian duo-pianists, 1990s. "The final story, set in Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, is an amazing set piece. From far-flung corners of the world, e.g., Dakar, Liverpool, Haifa, San Francisco, Saigon, Moscow, Capetown, Rio, Brussels, Dublin, New York, the descendants of Reizl and Lazar -- gay, straight, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-racial, multi-talented -- assemble in boisterous celebration of the ninety-second birthday of Freda, granddaughter of Reizl and Lazar, oldest surviving member of the family, and the birth of the new millennium." Jewish Book World, Winter 2009

And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family , Second Printing

Literary

BookSurge Publishing

Put Off My Sackcloth: Essays is a mosaic of essays about one writer's journey through a life fraught with crippling interior darkness in an uncertain world to the salve she finds in her "shored-up ruins" and new maternal life beneath the lambent glow of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in South-Central Colorado. The daughter of a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany and an American mother prone to suicidal depression, Annie Dawid, in these essays, traces the history of her life, pivoting between the hanging trees of her most despairing moments, the fouettés of her youth, her archetypal dig into the horrific mass suicides of Jonestown, and the aching "architectural wonders" of her beloved son, Elijah. After her father's death, Dawid finds in the wording of his will a "code" that sends her on a search for a new and better life. Dawid's rich and gratifying intellect, her cultural and political insights are enmeshed with the decisive moments of her life that lead her into emotional maelstroms and, at times, psychological bankruptcy. And yet throughout these essays, we never lose sight of Dawid's compassionate, empathetic embrace of all those she encounters who stand on fragile shores. As part of this journey, place looms large as an important character in the book. Sackcloth shines with the rural Colorado community of ranchers and artists who share with Dawid a sprawling valley of scattered coyote and spiraling constellations. Here, always, reigns the generosity of spirit, the life lesson shared, the simple hope carved out of this high mountain meadow land where Dawid lives with her son in an off-grid cabin amid cattle troughs and windmills and old pioneer tubs she fills with wildflower seed. Put Off My Sackcloth is an unblinking look at the life of one woman-daughter, mother, artist, scholar-who sought change and ultimately found illumination.

Put Off My Sackcloth: Essays

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

The Humble Essayist Press

Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown

Inkspot Publishing

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