Review by Booklist Review
As WWII ends, Asher wanders the blasted French countryside with nothing left but his sturdy boots, grief, rage, and trauma. A Jewish artist turned skilled cobbler whose family was murdered by the Nazis, Asher became an assassin for the Resistance and is now haunted by his victims. Kiernan (Universe of Two, 2020) extends his fresh approach to WWII fiction with this spellbinding fable of sanctuary, art, and recovery. Nearly hallucinating from hunger and despair, Asher encounters mysterious guides who vanish into thin air until he comes across two hale, cheerfully menacing brothers, veritable fairy-tale giants who direct him to a château where he just might find refuge. There Asher earns a place among a tightly organized enclave of damaged survivors laboring intently to keep an old glassworks running so that they can replace the nearby cathedral's bombed-out stained glass windows. Asher may have camouflaged his Jewishness, but there's no hiding his creativity. As Asher and his comrades harbor secrets and navigate rivalries, love affairs, jealousy, guilt, and anguish, Kiernan details the exacting process of making stained glass and, in a dazzlingly original leap, fuses Asher's artistic visions with the exuberantly magical, romantic, and revolutionary works of Marc Chagall. The upshot is a dramatic and transfixing tale that responds to life's horrors by celebrating beauty, resiliency, and soulfulness.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
