Small and sullen, Aron is eight years old when his family moves from a rural Polish village to hectic Warsaw. At first gradually and then ever more quickly, his family's opportunities for a better life vanish as the occupying German government imposes harsh restrictions. Officially confined to the Jewish quarter, with hunger, vermin, disease and death all around him, Aron makes his way from apprentice to master smuggler until finally, with everyone for whom he cared stripped away from him, his only option is Janusz Korczak, the renowned doctor, children's rights advocate, and radio host who runs a Jewish orphanage. And Korczak in turn awakens the humanity inside the boy.
JIM SHEPARD is the author of six previous novels and four story collections, including Like You'd Understand, Anyway, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won The Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, McSweeney's, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Esquire, Tin House, Granta, Zoetrope, Electric Literature, and Vice, and has often been selected for The Best American Short Stories and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children, and teaches at Williams College.
Show moreSmall and sullen, Aron is eight years old when his family moves from a rural Polish village to hectic Warsaw. At first gradually and then ever more quickly, his family's opportunities for a better life vanish as the occupying German government imposes harsh restrictions. Officially confined to the Jewish quarter, with hunger, vermin, disease and death all around him, Aron makes his way from apprentice to master smuggler until finally, with everyone for whom he cared stripped away from him, his only option is Janusz Korczak, the renowned doctor, children's rights advocate, and radio host who runs a Jewish orphanage. And Korczak in turn awakens the humanity inside the boy.
JIM SHEPARD is the author of six previous novels and four story collections, including Like You'd Understand, Anyway, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won The Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, McSweeney's, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Esquire, Tin House, Granta, Zoetrope, Electric Literature, and Vice, and has often been selected for The Best American Short Stories and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children, and teaches at Williams College.
Show moreJIM SHEPARD is the author of six previous novels and four story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won The Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Esquire, Tin House, Granta, Zoetrope, Electric Literature, and Vice, and has often been selected for The Best American Short Stories and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children, and teaches at Williams College.
A Washington Post, Huffington
Post, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year
An ALA Notable Book of 2015
Winner of the Sophie Brody Medal for Excellence in Jewish
Literature
Finalist for the Jewish Book Award
Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
“A masterpiece. . . . A story of such startling candor about the
complexity of heroism that it challenges each of us to greater
courage.” —The Washington Post
“Immensely rewarding, shocking and beautiful. . . . Shepard, who
for years has been one of this country’s greatest fiction writers,
is as original here as he has ever been.” —NPR
“Transcendent . . . [The Book of Aron] reminds us of the
infinite varieties of good and evil, and of the many paradoxical
places in between. . . . Enormous power comes from its stylistic
restraint [and] dignity flows from its utter lack of pretension.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle
“Stark . . . brilliant, iconic. . . . Ranks with the best
literature that explores the dark side of the human soul.” —The
Toronto Star
“Shepard has distilled his meticulous research into a swift, savage
narrative. . . . So rigorous and adroit in its handling of its
horrific subject matter, it makes you want to investigate
everything else Shepard has written.” —The Seattle Times
“Extraordinary. . . .This is a book about annihilation, and the
human spirit that somehow lives on, in slivers and cracks.” —Los
Angeles Review of Books
“At once heartbreaking, refreshing and—hardest won of
all—enchanting. Jim Shepard’s novel enters a crowded canon and it
stands there, head and shoulders, with the best.” —The Jewish
Quarterly
“A masterpiece [about] the possibilities of love and heroism—and
their limits.” —The Times (London)
“If Aron owns the rights to the book’s seductive narrative voice,
it is Korczak who embodies its enveloping humanity. . . . [They]
walk into the fire, lifting The Book of Aron into a realm
with the finest Holocaust fiction.” —The Boston Globe
“It is the relationship between Aron and Korczak that sits at the
heart of the novel [and] it is in the orbit of this entirely good
man that Aron’s scarred heart begins to heal and expand.”
—Geraldine Brooks, The New York Times Book Review
“Makes us feel anew the bewilderment and horror of that time and
place. . . . Flat-out brilliant and deeply empathetic.”
—Guernica
“A work of art. . . . Shepard turns hell into a testament of love
and sacrifice.” —Joshua Ferris, The
Guardian (London)
“[Shepard has] given the story an urgency and immediacy that made
this reviewer read the entire book in only two sittings. . . . A
tragedy of heroism, exquisitely written and devastating as it
progresses.” —Greg Walkin, The Lincoln Journal-Star
“[A] magnificent tour de force. . . . Shepard [is] a writer of
extraordinary historical vision, psychological acuity, and searing
irony.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Understated and devastating. . . . Pitch-perfect.” —Kirkus
Reviews (starred)
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