The writer of the extraordinary, critically-acclaimed play, Out Late, emerges with a powerful, emotionally reverberant debut novel that captures the hardship, oppression, and hope of a Jewish merchant’s life before, during and after World War II in the USSR.

In a world mired in bigotry and hate, Elazar, a young Jewish violinist in search of redemptive love and transportive music, survives World War II in the Soviet Union. 

Drifting back and forth between Ukraine and Uzbekistan between 1922 and 1944, Elazar navigates wedding-night steam rooms and birch-branch floggings; rivers of refugees and rivers of blood; lice and typhoid and refugee tent camps; horse-drawn carriage rides through betrayal and death and flattened shtetls; and the small luxuries of the desperate, a simple plate of chicken and cabbage. 

But in this literary symphony, there is always, always, the ebb and flow of music, weaving in and out of a life lost in the terrifying wilderness, searching for family and home. 

With its romantic war-era setting, layered characters and captivating love story, readers care about learning if the hero finds what he is looking for.

The Reluctant Conductor is the first novel in a tetralogy. Part 2, entitled The Power of Music, is coming in 2025.