The Speed of Light
A Novel
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4.4 • 14 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Three unforgettable souls must overcome the tragedies of the past to reconnect with one another and the world around them in this “haunting tale of timeless secrets and timely salvation” (Booklist, starred review).
“A resonating novel about silence and sharing, about the mystery and pain of the past and how it must be reclaimed.”—Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, award-winning author of The Mistress of Spices
Every family has a story. Every story, eventually, must be told.
For most of their lives, Julian Perel and his sister, Paula, lived in a house cast in silence, witnesses to a father struggling with a devastating secret too painful to share. Though their father took his demons to the grave, his past refuses to rest.
As adults, brother and sister struggle to find their voices. A scientist governed by numbers and logic, Julian now lives an ordered life of seclusion. In contrast, Paula, an aspiring opera singer, is always moving, buoyant with sound. Yet both their lives will change forever. Before embarking on a European tour, Paula asks her housekeeper, Sola, to watch over Julian. But Sola, too, has a story.
As Paula uncovers pieces of her father’s early life in Budapest and the horrifying truth of his past, Julian bears witness to Sola’s story—revelations that help all three learn how to both surrender and revere the shadows that have followed them for so long.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The adult children of a holocaust survivor learn about grief, forgiveness and the power of bearing witness from a Latina housekeeper who has also been victimized by government-sponsored genocide in a dark, subtle novel by poet Rosner. Julian and Paula Perel grew up with a somber, uncommunicative father still shell-shocked by his years in Auschwitz. Now with both parents dead, the siblings share a house in Berkeley, Calif. Julian, a recluse, lives an obsessive routine with 11 TVs in various states of disrepair to fend off the sadness that he calls his father's legacy. When Paula, an opera singer as adventurous as her brother is shy, heads to Europe to audition for opera houses and become a star, she asks her housekeeper, Sola Ordinaio, to care for her apartment and to keep an eye on Julian, whose elaborate rituals govern his life. A wary friendship blossoms between Sola and Julian, and deepens when Sola confesses that she is the only surviving witness of the Mexican government's massacre of her small village. Meanwhile, in Budapest, Paula traces the Perel family's roots and finds someone who tells her a horrible secret about Jacob Perel's time in Auschwitz. Paula feels her confidence faltering and cancels her last auditions to return to Berkeley. There, she finds Julian, with Sola's help, emerging from the emotional paralysis of his life and decides that she will not allow the tragedies of the past to silence him. The emotional impact of Rosner's material is considerable, but her schematic method of alternating the three voices of her protagonists makes the symmetries between their stories a little too neat. Still, the catharsis is moving, and the final affirmation of life, love and art to erase tragedy is uplifting.
