As for my parents, made in God’s image,

I more than once encountered them on the roads.

Your Jewish head is naked and bare,

I heard them say.

Your Jewish head, child.

O, leave your bread on the water,

The straps that bind you,

Throw them into the deepest abyss.

Throw! What kind of meaning do they have, anyway?

Many days from now, you will find them.

You will have to find them.

Now my parents have been rewarded.

My head is crowned.

With ancient gray Jewishness.

(translated from the Yiddish by Dara Horn)

More Praise for In The Image

More Praise for
IN THE IMAGE

“In this beautiful first novel, twenty-five-year-old Dara Horn meets you like a torch-bearer in the dark entryway of a mysterious castle, and you follow her into a fascinating labyrinth without looking back. . . . In the Image is not merely a striking success as a whole but a technical tour de force [that] has a strange, compelling, romantic fascination.”

—David Gelernter, Commentary

“Richly imagined. . . . Leora never loses her tourist’s eye, and her slightly skewed point of view gives In the Image both its poignancy and its wonderfully deadpan humor. . . . [An] intricate web of miracles, coincidences and accidents of fate.”

—New York Times Book Review

“Powerful. . . . In prose that flows like water, Horn tells [a] spiritual odyssey and coming-of-age story . . . with a sure hand and a keen eye for historic detail. A lively, compelling read, In the Image not only underscores Jewish identity in America, but more universally, gives suffering meaning and, in the end, hope.”

—Seattle Times

“A stunning example of how to thread the warp of Jewish history into the woof of contemporary American Jewish life. A riveting tale, one that explores a Jewish past as skillfully as it measures the Jewish present. In the Image unfolds (and then folds together) its interlocked stories in an accessible way. With this work Dara Horn joins an already impressive gallery of young American Jewish writers.”

—Hadassah

“Simultaneously earthy and sublime, Dara Horn’s In the Image practically glows with compassionate human warmth and compelling intellectual fervor. Moving deftly from a mundane American suburb (which she wondrously imbues with moral substance) to a portrait of European civility on the verge of barbarity, to a mystical realm where the theologically ineffable becomes surprisingly palpable, it may be the most ambitious and accomplished first novel I have ever read.”

—Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of Strange Fire

“Impressive . . . remarkable. . . . All of the characters struggle for those gemlike qualities of passion, brilliance, clarity, fire. . . . [Their] worlds intersect in lovely, sometimes heartbreaking ways, as the characters struggle with their memories, their dreams. . . . Horn weaves complex and unforgettable images with strands of sacred text. . . . Memory and identity are at the core of this beautifully written novel, which demands—and rewards—the reader’s close attention.”

—New Orleans Times-Picayune