From the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Israeli author, a stunning novella that brilliantly illuminates a young girl's crisis of faith and coming of age in Padua, Italy.
Rachele Luzzato is twelve years old when she learns her father is gravely ill. While her family plans for her upcoming Bat-Mitzvah, Rachele finds herself cast as the Madonna in her school’s Christmas play. Caught between spiritual poles, struggling to cope with her father’s mortality, Rachele feels as if the threads of her everyday life are unravelling.
A diverse circle of adults are there to guide young Rachele as she faces the difficult passing of childhood, including her charismatic Jewish grandfather, her maternal Catholic grandparents, and even an old teacher who believes the young girl might find solace in a nineteenth-century novel. These spiritual tributaries ultimately converge in Rachele's imagination, creating a fantasy that transcends the microcosm of her daily life with one simple hope: an end to the loneliness felt by an only daughter.
In this wondrous story that combines the piercing wisdom of Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love, the poignancy of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend; and the magical flight of Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, A. B. Yehoshua paints a warm and subtle portrait of a young girl at the cusp of her journey into adulthood.