FREE EVENT

Qesher Book Club: Finding Home (Hungary, 1945)

Tuesday, May 7

USA 12:00 pm PT / 3:00 pm ET

UK 8:00 pm / France 9:00 pm / Israel 10:00 pm

The talk will last approximately 60 minutes

About this talk

"A unique novel that explores deeply, the complex emotional, moral and economic dynamics of Jewish survivors, attempting to return to their homes after liberation from the camps".

For nine months in Auschwitz, eighteen-year-old Eva Fleiss clung to sanity by playing piano on imaginary keyboards. After liberation, Eva and the five remaining Jews of Laszlo, Hungary, journey home, seeking to restart their lives. Yet the town that deported them is not ready to embrace their return. Their former neighbors and friends resist relinquishing their newfound status and property, and they struggle with their roles as perpetrators, enablers, and bystanders during the Holocaust.

Longing for connection to her old life, Eva agrees to clean her former home, now the mayor's home, in return for practice time on her piano. As her profound experiences allow her to access music at a depth she didn't know existed, Eva's performances begin to affect those around her, with unexpected consequences.

Find out more about the book here (all of the royalties go to supporting aged survivors).

About the Author

Dean Cycon is an author, lawyer, human rights advocate, and social entrepreneur who has lived and worked in over sixty countries. A passionate explorer of culture and history, Dean seeks out unexamined corners that illuminate the human condition. He has previously published Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee, which was awarded the Gold Medal for Best Travel Essay by the Independent Publishers Association and has been translated into Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. Finding Home (Hungary, 1945) is his first novel. Dean lives in Western Massachusetts, USA.