Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Carol Shields once said that “a great novel should follow the character’s search for a metaphoric home.”
I’ve thought a lot about that comment recently; it resonates with Is It Night or Day? in two ways.
First, that is the trajectory of Edith’s story. She is a child immigrant searching for a home, physically and metaphorically. Young Edith’s bewildered efforts to assimilate in America are as poignant as her struggle against constant feelings of abandonment and isolation. Through the prism of Edith’s story, readers experience urgent themes that resonate with today’s headlines: families torn and children threatened by immigration issues, war, natural disasters, and the daunting work necessary to rebuild a life in the face of unspeakable loss.
Second, with the book’s launch only weeks away, the book and the story are searching for a home and an audience. The book explores the little-known One Thousand Children project which rescued some 1,200 youngsters from the Holocaust.
My hope is that this book will give Edith a home and the One Thousand Children a place in history.