Holy Lands - Tapa dura

Pithy, loaded letters and emails aimed at their vulnerable targets fly more like missiles than missives in Amanda Sthers' lively epistolary novel . . . Sthers' book has the timing, wit, and warmth of a screwball screenplay that isn't allowed to idle for more than a beat . . . Sthers captures her characters' distinct voices and dueling positions with practiced concision and obvious relish. (NPR.org)

This is a book you can read in an afternoon, but it'll stick with you for much longer than that. Comic, moving, and occasionally profound, Sthers' novel is a delight. (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

Each letter in Holy Lands is a soliloquy about pain, separation, and belonging. (Washington Independent Review of Books)

This moving novel manages a delicate balance between humor and tenderness among a family incapable of interacting without rancor. (Publishers Weekly)

[A] quick-footed, perfectly choreographed, piercingly funny, and poignant novel . . . As each articulate, conflicted, and ardent character endures life-altering experiences, Sthers incisively and provocatively questions crucial matters of religion, morality, inheritance, compassion, and love. (Booklist)

Sthers is an expert at crafting dysfunctional families that remain touching and relatable. With Holy Lands, she's penned an irreverent and endearing reminder that blood is thicker than water. (Karen Tanabe, author of The Gilded Years)

With eloquent Jewish humor, ironic taunts, familial reprimands, and cries from the heart each of the letters that form this gripping novel reveals a new secret, or asks a new question . . . Along the way we see that change is possible and that truth can be a brilliant vehicle of reconciliation. This book reminds us how intense, even pungent, all our letters, postal or electronic, should be. (Grace Dane Mazur, author of The Garden Party)