Overview:
“You can’t walk away from love. It clings to you night and day.”
The rare and seamless harmony of medicine, fiction, and history is the mortar to Daniel Kalla’s new novel, The Far Side of the Sky. Kalla sheds light on the period from 1938 – 1942, when persecuted Jews were forced to flee their homelands for safety, many finding solace in Shanghai, the only place whose doors were still open to them.
A city teeming with the Japanese Imperial Army, as well as myriad cultures, Shanghai represents everything from happiness to despair for the “stateless refugees”, including Dr. Franz Adler, his sister-in-law, Essie, daughter, Hannah, and friend, Ernst. In Shanghai, Franz volunteers as a surgeon at the refugee hospital, where he meets Sunny Mah, a young and determined Chinese nurse. When the Japanese ally with Germany following the attack on Pearl Harbour, no one’s fate is secure. The importance of friendship, the reality of love, and the strength of family fills these pages, and will fill your heart.
The novel opens on November 9, 1938, a day remembered for Kristallnacht , “the night of broken glass”, a series of attacks on Jews, synagogues and Jewish businesses throughout Austria and Nazi Germany. Where one might expect statistics or meticulous numbers, Kalla delivers only the raw emotion of Franz Adler, a man hiding in his apartment, fearfully watching his neighbours tortured in the street below, his city mercilessly shattered, and his grief-stricken sister-in-law, who has just seen her murdered husband hanging from a lamp post.
This emotion is all you need to truly understand.
You don’t need to know that nearly 3,000 people were killed during Kristallnacht – not yet. You will discover all of these heartbreaking facts, and more, when you’re so moved by the end, as I was, that you feel compelled to research. Because the most wonderful, and chilling, aspect of Kalla’s novel is its adherence to fact – nearly everything described actually happened, though you don’t want to believe that it did. You will encounter familiar faces and places: Poland’s terrifying Chełmno concentration camp, Colonel Josef Meisinger, war-torn Vienna, Herschel Grynszpan, a Shanghai in constant flux, Adolf Hitler.
Kalla perfectly captures the moment, making us feel that we are right there with the Adler family, sharing Essie’s grief over her lost husband, witnessing Franz’s unyielding commitment to his daughter, and learning of the horrifying treatment of European Jews. Yet in the midst of anguish shines an unmistakable glimmer of faith, the cornerstone of the novel. Sunny’s determination, New Yorker Simon’s joviality, and the secret compassion shown by their German and Chinese friends are touching and heartfelt.
The Far Side of the Sky is a genuine and powerful insight into the experiences, good and bad, of one Austrian family during years wrought with the injustice of a twisted and manipulative Nazi regime. The novel combines medical expertise with the realities of World War II to produce an addicting, moving, and magnificent story of, above all, hope.
"A truly wonderful and important book that adds a fictional story to a significant part of little-known Jewish history."--Tzipi Livni, Official Opposition Leader and former Foreign Minister of Israel
“Kalla deftly portrays the triumph and heartbreak of life-or-death matters.”--Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author, on Of Flesh and Blood
“A family saga set in the world of medicine. It’s full of twists and turns and long-brewing feuds.”--Eileen Goudge, New York Times bestselling author, on Of Flesh and Blood
ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their
Fellow Men!
Thank you Mr. John D.
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