In The Mystics of Mile End, four distinct voices weave together the tale of a dysfunctional Jewish family obsessed with climbing the Kabbalah's Tree of Life.
Brother and sister Lev and Samara Meyer live in Montreal's Mile End — a mashup of hipsters and Hasidic Jews. They have a fairly typical childhood, other than that their father is distracted, their mother is dead, and down the street Mr. Katz is trying to recreate the Biblical Tree of Knowledge out of plucked leaves, toilet paper rolls, and dental floss.
When their father, David, a professor of Jewish mysticism, is diagnosed with an unusual heart murmur, he becomes convinced that his heart is whispering divine secrets. But as David's frenzied attempts to ascend the Tree of Life lead to tragedy, Samara and Lev set out — in separate and divisive ways — to finish what he's started. It falls to next-door neighbor and Holocaust survivor Chaim Glassman to shatter the silence that divides the members of the Meyer family. But can he break through to them in time?
Long-held family secrets square off against faith and secularity in this acclaimed debut novel. Dubbed "a feast to read" by the LA Review of Books, it is reminiscent of The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and Bee Season by Myla Goldberg.
The Mystics of Mile End won a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and an Alberta Book Publishing Award in 2016. It was also nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. It is available in English, French, and Italian: