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Review: Keeping Hannah Waiting
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Persis Granger

Reviewer Persis ("Perky") Granger: Perky is an avid reader and a writer of fiction and nonfiction, including Adirondack Gold, A Summer of Strangers and Shared Stories from Daughters of Alzheimer's: Writing a path to peace. She studied at the College of Wooster (OH) and the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), earning a BA at the latter. She later completed her Master of Science in Teaching at SUNY Plattsburgh.
She presents programs to adults and youth, and hosts writers’ retreats in New York and Florida. Learn more at www.PersisGranger.com (also accessed as www.FictionAmongFriends.com.)

 





 
By Persis Granger
Published on December 9, 2008
 

Author: Dave Clarke

ISBN: 978-0615227474

Publisher: Hologram Publishing

Author Dave Clarke spins a fascinating tale of a grieving daughter’s accidental discovery of a previously unknown and fabulously valuable Chagall painting, found among the huge collection of old books left by the young woman’s recently deceased mother.


 



Click Here To Purchase and/or Find Out More About Keeping Hannah Waiting

Author: Dave Clarke

ISBN: 978-0615227474

Publisher: Hologram Publishing

 

Author Dave Clarke spins a fascinating tale of a grieving daughter’s accidental discovery of a previously unknown and fabulously valuable Chagall painting, found among the huge collection of old books left by the young woman’s recently deceased mother.

More interesting than the fairy-tale-like inheritance of riches is the story that unfolds after young Kate McBride, a bakery worker, receives the proceeds of the painting’s sale. The story is driven by Kate’s strong ethics, her determination to do the right thing and her natural empathy for those in need. The money takes Kate to Europe where the chance viewing of a photograph at Dachau turns her life in a new direction—the search for Hannah Kessler Stern, believed to be a survivor of the Holocaust. Kate’s seriousness is nicely offset by the facetiousness of best bud Connie Perez. All of Clarke’s characters are highly believable, and his use of authentic dialect is compelling.

The reader is transported back to pre-World War II Europe, when young Marc Chagall, an aspiring Russian painter from a large Jewish family, met and fell in love with eighteen-year-old Hannah Kessler, daughter of a Jewish insurance mogul who intends for his daughter to marry the son of his business associate and carry on the family business. Their tender story stands in stark contrast to the horror set in motion by the rise of Adolph Hitler and his ethnic purging.

Clarke has put human faces on history, and has highlighted, not only the terror of Nazism, but also the unresolved injustices that remain today, decades after the murders and destruction of families in the concentration camps and the wholesale looting of art and other valuables by Nazis. He has done it so artfully that I was pulled headlong into the story. The harshness of war’s ugliness and injustice were gently offset by the beauty of his description and the joyful freshness of the love story. The reader, however, will remember it all.

Clarke is to be commended for his treatment of this topic, and for directing profits from his book to the Survivor Mitzvah Project, begun as a 100% charity to support aging Holocaust survivors in need around the world. ( Visit their web site, http://www.survivormitzvah.org/.)

Click Here To Purchase and/or Find Out More About Keeping Hannah Waiting