A discovery of letters sent at the outbreak of WW2 between a German-Jewish mother and her daughter, who recently escaped to America, unspools a thread of love and the powerful bonds over four generations of mothers and daughters.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
*A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick* *An Indie Next Great Read*
'[A] vivid depiction of a family's heartbreak, its rending and rebuilding.' - Clare Lombardo, New York Times Book Review 'Spanning generations and continents, from pre-WWII Germany to current day midwestern America, Send For Me is a richly imagined testament to the ties that bind.' Whitney Scharer
Germany 1930s. Annelise is a dreamer: imagining her future while working at her parents' popular bakery in Feldenheim, Germany, anticipating all the delicious possibilities yet to come. There are rumours that anti-Jewish sentiment is on the rise, but Annelise and her parents can't quite believe that it will affect them; they're hardly religious at all. But as Annelise falls in love, marries, and gives birth to her daughter Ruthie, the dangers grow closer: a brick thrown through her window; a childhood friend who cuts ties with her; customers refusing to patronise the bakery. Luckily Annelise and her husband are given the chance to leave for America, but they must go without her parents, whose future and safety are uncertain.
Two generations later, in a small Midwestern city, Ruthie's daughter and Annelise's granddaughter, Clare, is a young woman newly in love. But when she stumbles upon her grandmother's letters from Germany, she sees the history of her family's sacrifices in a new light, and suddenly she's faced with an impossible choice: the past, or her future.
A novel of dazzling emotional richness that is based on letters from Lauren Fox's own family, Send for Me is an epic and intimate exploration of mothers and daughters, duty and obligation, hope and forgiveness.
Fox satisfyingly brings this story of love and desire full circle, as Clare and Ruth reflect on what it means to be both a mother and a child in the darkest of times.
This tender and deeply inspired story will move readers.
