4 Great Reads for Memorial Day Weekend
What could make the first weekend of summer more delightful than new fiction that sizzles? Read these on the deck.
By Dawn Raffel
4 of 4
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
By Jennifer Haupt
384 pages;
Central Avenue
Haupt's debut
novel, informed by her experiences as a journalist in Rwanda, is more than a
page-turning narrative; it's an embrace of the Kinyarwanda greeting amahoro—"peace."
The story opens in 2000 with an American woman, Rachel Shepherd, who is
determined to find her long-lost father after the stillbirth of her child. The
search leads her to the home of her dad's second wife, Lillian, a black
American civil rights activist, now caring for orphans in Mubaro, Rwanda, as
the country tries to heal from genocide. Her father has vanished again, but Rachel
soon becomes enmeshed in the family Lillian has created and the daily perils of
a community striving for reconciliation yet still simmering with violence, loss
and fear. Everyday actions—a former child soldier "dithering
over a chocolate croissant or a cinnamon beignet"—are shadowed
by a constant awareness of recent horror. As one woman says, "How can we
start over?" In time, the explosive secret of Rachel's father is revealed—as
is much wisdom about the ways we strive to move forward and, however
imperfectly, find peace.
— Dawn Raffel
Published 05/15/2018