Becoming Sarah - by Diane Botnick (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For fans of Claire Messud and Téa Obreht, a debut novel that examines how the Holocaust shapes the life of one tough survivor and the toll it takes on her daughters and granddaughters.

Can you call yourself a Survivor if you don't know what you survived?

Take Sarah Vogel. Auschwitz is her hometown, yet she has no memory of the place. Not the obscene conditions of her birth, the mother, or the changing cast of faceless women who kept her warm on winter nights. She's only three when liberated, and with no one to tell her who she is or what she might become, Sarah has no choice but to invent herself. On her journey from Europe, land of the defeated, to America, land of the self-invented, she learns that holes in a person's past are red flags and that little white lies go down easier than explanations. But eventually those lies will become the wall that hides her true self, the good and the bad, from those she loves.

Becoming Sarah is the poignant, sometimes ruthless portrait of an American family--its matriarch, a tough old bird who should never have drawn breath but is bent on lasting forever--and the line of daughters and granddaughters who follow. Each generation standing on the shoulders of the last; each gaining more of the strength, will, and maybe even luck that will make them Survivors in their own right.

Review Quotes

"Lyrically and meticulously composed . . . Not a traditional Holocaust story, Botnick's narrative examines the effects of the detritus left behind by the great atrocity on those who survived as well as their offspring. . . . Painful, dramatic, and ultimately triumphant."--Kirkus Reviews

How does a survivor of unspeakable acts survive--and what happens to the children they raise? Botnick bravely and successfully takes on these questions with great skill, in a style that is witty and wonderfully hopeful. Becoming Sarah offers a brilliant quartet of unforgettable women who each crave a love that has been stifled but never destroyed."--Gloria Jacobs, former executive director of The Feminist Press and executive editor of Ms. Magazine

"Becoming Sarah opens with a gut-punch crafted so beautifully, it feels almost divine. Botnick carries the reader through decades and deep inside a world of survivors and strivers, existentialists and cynics, sinners and saints. Full, fresh, and often startlingly funny, this novel offers a new way of looking at the world, and just in time."--Amy Friedman, author of Desperado's Wife

"A prism-like gaze at the jewel of motherhood, with its sharp edges and smooth opaque surfaces, Becoming Sarah keeps churning through several generations of Jewish women, who strive to understand each other and themselves beneath the shadows of the Holocaust. Every sentence is meticulously written and not a word wasted."--Suzzy Roche, founder of The Roches and author of The Town Crazy

"With poignant prose and deeply portrayed characters, Becoming Sarah is a testament of resilience."--Nancy Chadwick, author of Mercy Town

"Becoming Sarah is a sweeping generational saga, told in oblique yet powerful prose. From Sarah's birth in Auschwitz through many generations of daughters stretching into the future, Botnick shows us the slowly uncoiling effects of motherlessness, persecution, and displacement--and how love weaves, struggles, and sometimes triumphs through it all."--Helen Benedict, author of The Good Deed and Wolf Season

About the Author

Diane Botnick was born and raised in the Midwest. She called New York City home for years, writing while working for various organizations in support of the arts. Becoming Sarah is her debut novel. She and her family currently live in Cold Spring, New York.