RED ANEMONES

In Dáil’s historical novel, a woman discovers her Jewish lineage when her estranged mother dies.

Prompted by the serendipitous discovery of her own previously unknown Jewish lineage, the author was inspired to imagine the life of a young woman leaving behind Germany and her family in 1912 to reconnect with a fiancé who had already emigrated to the United States. This story of the fictional Nathalie Weiss, her daughters Sarah and Rachael Rosenblum, and her namesake granddaughter, Natalie Barlow, is also an account of the struggle of Jewish immigrants who found themselves unwelcome in an increasingly antisemitic America. Readers meet Nathalie in 1910 Germany as she argues with her parents, who insist that it is time for her to marry. The matchmaker has chosen 29-year-old Eitan Rosenblum to be her betrothed (“he is now ready to finally settle down and become serious about life”). Despite Eitan’s determination to emigrate to the United States, a marriage contract is signed, and the couple agrees that Eitan will leave first, with Nathalie following him when she is ready to leave home. Two years later, she arrives in Elyria, Ohio, but despite her best efforts, she always feels like a stranger in an unfamiliar and threatening land. (Being both Jewish and German is a double hit.) Her daughters counter the bigotry by adopting false identities: When they leave home, Sarah changes her name to Sally Rose, and Rachael becomes Charlotte Rose. Charlotte’s daughter, Natalie, slowly unravels the complicated, occasionally confusing web of family secrets revealed through the letters and journals Charlotte left behind, written mostly in German. When Natalie enlists translation help from a disenchanted priest, their ensuing romance lifts the weight of America’s long-standing history of bigotry toward immigrants and anyone not white, Protestant, and male. The narrative, alternating between past and present, is packed full of information about the Jewish experience; Dáil skillfully captures Sally and Charlotte’s terror of being discovered. The story, a carefully composed study of emotional and psychological damage endured by those forced to hide their heritage, also serves as a cautionary message relevant to today’s culture of hostility toward immigrants.

Poignant, disturbing, and historically and dramatically riveting.