RESONANCE

Author(s): Daniel Chertoff, Michael Tobin

Location(s): Paris

Genre(s): Historical, Fiction

Era(s): 1922 and 1970s

1971, Paris

Sophie Hadad works as a “tumbleweed” at Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, having fled a dysfunctional family and predatory professors in the U.S. When store owner George Whitman tasks Sophie with excavating the store’s basement, she discovers a literary treasure: an invoice to Ernest Hemingway, letters from James Joyce, and notes from other great writers of the 1920s. But the greatest treasure Sophie unearths is the journal of a young Polish Jewish sculptor and later World War II partisan, Anna Grinberg. Through the dust and despite the years, Anna’s journal touches Sophie deeply, offering her a way forward.

1922, Paris

Anna Grinberg’s talent as a sculptor is raw and innate. She leaves her beloved grandfather, her only surviving family after the pogroms and the Spanish flu, and travels to Paris, driven by her need to pursue her art. After studying with Antione Bourdelle, her reputation soars, and in the vibrant world of Montparnasse, she keeps company with Ernest Hemingway, Jules Pascin, Adrienne Monnier, and Sylvia Beach, among others. But her association with Hemingway, and soon the growing darkness enveloping Europe, threaten her in different ways – and Anna must make choices.

In this gripping, elegant, and powerful literary historical novel, Michael S. Tobin and Daniel S. Chertoff (a former tumbleweed himself) explore, through dual timelines, the relationship between art and literature, the nature of the creative process, exile, power in relationships, and true connection, while also celebrating Paris and serving as a paean to Shakespeare and Company.

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