Those Who Walk In Darkness

Action, surprises, and betrayal—these are the ingredients of Those Who Walk in Darkness, a sweeping immigrant family saga. From Bessarabia (today’s Moldova) at the start of the twentieth century to Boston in the 1930s, we follow the Rabinowitz family as they fight to reach America and strive to make it in their adopted home.

Those Who Walk in Darkness introduces us to Shmuel, a brooding father accustomed to scratching out a paltry living on the road, and Tova, his silent, private wife, who raises their three children at home. Isidore, frail and insecure but with a gift for business, is constantly vexed by younger brother Jake, who is rebellious and mature beyond his years. Hanna, the youngest, is bright and mischievous, and clearly favors one brother over the other. The family’s seeming harmony and growing success is suddenly blown apart by shameful revelations, romantic conflicts, and war.

Amid a background of crushing poverty and anti-Semitism, rampant both in their Bessarabian shtetl and in Depression-burdened Boston, Those Who Walk in Darkness captures the consequences of difficult choices, teenage lust, and brotherly rivalry, and the emotional devastation wrought by long-held secrets and frustrated dreams.