Klara's Truth

A Novel

by Susan Weissbach Friedman

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Pub Date Jun 11 2024 | Archive Date Mar 27 2024

She Writes Press

General Fiction (Adult) | Religion & Spirituality | Women's Fiction

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Description

It is May 2014, and Dr. Klara Lieberman—forty-nine, single, professor of archaeology at a small liberal arts college in Maine, a contained person living a contained life—has just received a letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, that will dramatically change her life. Her father, she learns—the man who has been absent from her life for the last forty-three years, and about whom she has long been desperate for information—is dead. Has been for many years, in fact, which Bessie clearly knew. But now the Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during WWII, and Bessie wants the money. Klara has little interest in the money—but she does want answers about her father. She flies to Warsaw, determined to learn more.

In Poland, Klara begins to piece together her father’s, and her own, story. She also connects with extended family, begins a romantic relationship, and discovers her calling: repairing the hundreds of forgotten, and mostly destroyed, pre-War Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Along the way, she becomes a more integrated, embodied, and interpersonally connected individual—one with the tools to make peace with her past and, for the first time in her life, build purposefully toward a bigger future.

Advance Praise

“In her beautifully written and riveting debut novel, Friedman propelled me on a journey to post–WWII Poland where the ghosts of a once vibrant Jewish community haunted me. With great sensitivity, Friedman uses her experience as a social worker and therapist to show how a rejecting mother and hidden childhood sexual trauma froze Klara’s heart and left her fearful of close relationships. I rejoiced as Klara gradually finds purpose and love in this engrossing family saga that I could not put down.”

—Florence Reiss Kraut, author of Street Corner Dreams and How to Make a Life

“In Klara's Truth, themes of identity—personal, cultural, religious, and familial—are interwoven with echoes of intergenerational trauma. Klara finds her past . . . and herself. Thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end!”

—Stephanie Newman, PhD, clinical psychologist, adjunct professor of psychology at Columbia University, and author of Barbarians at the PTA, Madmen on the Couch, and Money Talks

“In this page-turning novel, Susan Weissbach Friedman integrates her experience as a trauma therapist with her gifts as a storyteller to share a beautiful story of healing and transformation. Klara’s personal journey is embedded seamlessly into a background that captures the traumatic impact of the Holocaust on Polish Jewish families. Friedman guides the reader back and forth from the depths of Klara’s wounded heart to the history of Poland beyond World War II, instilling hope in the reader that both the individual and the nation are capable of moving beyond a past of devastation towards a more optimistic future.”

—Shari A. Becker, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, yoga and meditation teacher, and somatic experiencing practitioner

“Klara’s Truth is an ambitious and heartfelt novel about the ways in which our adult lives are shaped by the secrets of our past. From Maine to New York to modern-day Warsaw, Susan Weissbach brings readers on a journey of self-discovery, newfound family, and acceptance.”

—Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The Matchmaker’s Gift, The Wartime Sisters, and The Two-Family House

“Susan Weissbach Friedman has written a compelling story of family and heritage and self-discovery, of family ties and friendship and second chances, and has added a side of possible romance. She also gives us another perspective on how the sharp fingernails of war reach through generations and prick the skin decades after the guns stop firing. A great read!”

—Ellen Barker, author of East of Troost and Still Needs Work