Forest Dark - Large Print by Nicole Krauss (Paperback)

About the Book

In the wake of his parents' deaths, his divorce, and his retirement from a New York legal firm, Jules Epstein has felt an irresistible need to give away his possessions, alarming his children and perplexing the executor of his estate. He travels to Israel, with a nebulous plan to do something to honor his parents. In Tel Aviv he is sidetracked by a charismatic American rabbi planning a reunion for the descendants of King David. Meanwhile a young, well-known novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton, troubled by writer's block and a failing marriage. When she meets a retired literature professor who proposes a project she can't turn down, she's drawn into a mystery that alters her life in ways she could never have imagined.

Book Synopsis

National Bestseller - A New York Times Notable Book

Named Best Book of the Year by Esquire, Times Literary Supplement, Elle Magazine, LitHub, Publishers Weekly, Financial Times, Guardian, Refinery29, PopSugar, and Globe and Mail

"A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration." --Philip Roth

"One of America's most important novelists" (New York Times), the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The History of Love, conjures an achingly beautiful and breathtakingly original novel about personal transformation that interweaves the stories of two disparate individuals--an older lawyer and a young novelist--whose transcendental search leads them to the same Israeli desert.

Jules Epstein, a man whose drive, avidity, and outsized personality have, for sixty-eight years, been a force to be reckoned with, is undergoing a metamorphosis. In the wake of his parents' deaths, his divorce from his wife of more than thirty years, and his retirement from the New York legal firm where he was a partner, he's felt an irresistible need to give away his possessions, alarming his children and perplexing the executor of his estate. With the last of his wealth, he travels to Israel, with a nebulous plan to do something to honor his parents. In Tel Aviv, he is sidetracked by a charismatic American rabbi planning a reunion for the descendants of King David who insists that Epstein is part of that storied dynastic line. He also meets the rabbi's beautiful daughter who convinces Epstein to become involved in her own project--a film about the life of David being shot in the desert--with life-changing consequences.

But Epstein isn't the only seeker embarking on a metaphysical journey that dissolves his sense of self, place, and history. Leaving her family in Brooklyn, a young, well-known novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton where she has stayed every year since birth. Troubled by writer's block and a failing marriage, she hopes that the hotel can unlock a dimension of reality--and her own perception of life--that has been closed off to her. But when she meets a retired literature professor who proposes a project she can't turn down, she's drawn into a mystery that alters her life in ways she could never have imagined.

Bursting with life and humor, Forest Dark is a profound, mesmerizing novel of metamorphosis and self-realization--of looking beyond all that is visible towards the infinite.

From the Back Cover

Jules Epstein is undergoing a metamorphosis. In the wake of his parents' deaths, a divorce, and retirement from his law firm, he's felt an irresistible need to give away his possessions. With the last of his wealth he travels to Israel, with a nebulous plan to do something to honor his parents. In Tel Aviv, he is sidetracked by a charismatic American rabbi who is planning a reunion for the descendants of King David and insists that Epstein join. He also meets the rabbi's beautiful daughter who convinces Epstein to become involved in her own project.

On her own pilgrimage, a well-known young novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton, where she has stayed every year since birth. She's left her family for this trip, hoping that the hotel can cure her writer's block and unlock a dimension of reality that has been closed off to her. But when she meets a retired literature professor who proposes a project she can't refuse, she's drawn into a mystery that will profoundly change her.

Bursting with life and humor, Forest Dark is a mesmerizing novel of transformation and self-realization--of looking beyond all that is visible toward the infinite.

Review Quotes

"Forest Dark is a novel that resists our presumptions of what a novel should do." - Ron Charles, Washington Post
"A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration." - Philip Roth
"...Krauss writes for those who want to co-create a world with her. By the ends of her novels, a reader has ideas about how these characters' lives intersect..." - Moment Magazine
"Delving into the metaphysical and the spiritual realms, Krauss presents a stirring...exploration of the 'unformed and nameless life' that exists alongside the one we're consciously living." - The New Yorker
"A thought-provoking and captivating book." - Ploughshares
"In this novel, metamorphosis dances across the pages, with nods to Jewish literary lions and masters of magical realism Sholem Asch, Bruno Schulz, and I. L. Peretz. Here we see Krauss giving shape to the Jewish literary canon of the future...A pulsing intelligence courses through Forest Dark." - Erica Brody, Hadassah Magazine
"... a cerebral, dual-stranded tale of disillusionment and spiritual quest..." - Heather McAlpin, NPR
"Forest Dark is a feast. Dazzling, beautiful, powerful, bewildering, consumed by things eternal: a romance of metamorphosis, creation, and nostalgia for home." - Christian Century
"... Nicole Krauss' fourth and most interior, introspective, cerebral, and autobiographical novel to date..." - New York Journal of Books
"Forest Dark is a literary achievement..." - Chicago Jewish Review
"A hybrid work of fiction, memoir and literary criticism..." - Associated Press
"Brilliant, inventive and ambitious." - USA Today
"A triumphant new novel...that suggests a determination to stretch conventional narrative in unconventional directions...Krauss' prose balances precision and grace...This author is incapable of writing a sentence that does not seem chiseled to perfection...In Forest Dark, Nicole Krauss has once again mastered a light touch in pursuit of weighty themes." - San Francisco Chronicle
"She writes insight and revelation better than just about anyone working today...While Krauss' genius has long been evident, of her four books this one cuts closest to the bone. The woods may be dark but Krauss' gorgeous sentences light our way through." - O Magazine
"A literary adventure in a different kind of storytelling...Krauss' voice in fiction is still original: She crafts beautiful sentences, challenges form and ideas, creates characters alive to possibility and she's funny." - Jewish Week
"The tangled necessity of such double-ness is one of Krauss' core themes and the key to her characters' quests: how we are at once shaped and confined by the forms we require for life, be they stories, relationships, or places." - Boston Globe
"The feelings Epstein and Nicole have about their lives and loves feel hard-earned and true...The resonances between these characters are often profound. Both are searching for their true selves, an ocean away from the old lives that have tested their faith." - The Economist
"Krauss expertly intertwines musings on theology and the life of Franz Kafka in this beautifully written follow-up to the National Book Award finalist The Great House." - Buzzfeed