{"product_id":"forest-dark-a-novel-isbn-9780062430991","title":"Forest Dark: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNational Bestseller \u003c\/strong\u003e• \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eA New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e Notable Book\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNamed Best Book of the Year by\u003cem\u003e Esquire, Times Literary Supplement, Elle Magazine, LitHub, Publishers Weekly, Financial Times, Guardian, Refinery29, PopSugar, \u003c\/em\u003eand\u003cem\u003e Globe and Mail\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration.\" —Philip Roth\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"One of America’s most important novelists\" (\u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e), the award-winning, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eThe History of Love\u003c\/em\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJules 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBursting with life and humor, \u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e is a profound, mesmerizing novel of metamorphosis and self-realization—of looking beyond all that is visible towards the infinite.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eJules 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 law firm where he was a partner, he has 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 that is being shot in the desert—with life-changing consequences.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut 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 well-known young novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton, where she has stayed every year since her 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 is drawn into a mystery that alters her life in ways she could never have imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBursting with life and humor, \u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e is a profound, mesmerizing novel of transformation and self-realization—of looking beyond all that is visible toward the infinite.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e is a novel that resists our presumptions of what a novel should do.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRon Charles, Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePhilip Roth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“…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…” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMoment Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A thought-provoking and captivating book.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePloughshares\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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 \u003cem\u003eForest Dark.”\u003c\/em\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eErica Brody, Hadassah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“… a cerebral, dual-stranded tale of disillusionment and spiritual quest…” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHeather McAlpin, NPR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“Forest Dark \u003c\/em\u003eis a feast. Dazzling, beautiful, powerful, bewildering, consumed by things eternal: a romance of metamorphosis, creation, and nostalgia for home.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristian Century\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“… Nicole Krauss’ fourth and most interior, introspective, cerebral, and autobiographical novel to date…” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Journal of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e is a literary achievement…”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChicago Jewish Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A hybrid work of fiction, memoir and literary criticism…” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAssociated Press\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Brilliant, inventive and ambitious.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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 \u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e, Nicole Krauss has once again mastered a light touch in pursuit of weighty themes.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eO Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJewish Week\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Economist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Krauss expertly intertwines musings on theology and the life of Franz Kafka in this beautifully written follow-up to the National Book Award finalist \u003cem\u003eThe Great House\u003c\/em\u003e.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBuzzfeed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e finds Krauss at the top of her game. It is blazingly intelligent, elegantly written, and a remarkable achievement.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEmily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven (The Guardian review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Lucid and exhilarating...Elias Canetti once wrote of Kafka that he sought, above all, to preserve his freedom to fail. In this spirit, Krauss, an incisive and creative interpreter of Kafka, allows Nicole and Epstein to regain their own freedom to fail. This particular freedom should never be taken lightly. It’s a great gift not only to her characters, but to her readers.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeter Orner, New York Times Book Review (cover feature)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Magnificent. . . . A richly layered masterpiece; creative, profound, insightful, deeply serious, effortlessly elegant, both human and humane. Krauss is a poet and a philosopher, and this latest work does what only the very best fiction can do—startles, challenges and enlightens the reader, while showing the familiar world anew.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“One of the bravest and most original writers of her generation… \u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e—the best new novel I’ve read this year…Krauss’ intrepid journey into this forest reveals great secrets, involving the tales we tell as we whistle in the dark.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMilwaukee Journal Sentinel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e is so forceful and gripping that I simply gobbled it up from start to finish.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBook Browse\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e tackles that ultimate question [the meaning of life]…Nicole Krauss takes chances with form…The pleasure of Krauss’ writing…is in the wayward precision of her language that draws us into the desert, ‘the forest dark’ and other contemplative places where illumination occurs.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Nicole Krauss remains accessible through all of the risks she takes, which might be her greatest feat…\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e expands the possibilities of what the novel is capable of...The novel is a whirlwind, pure and simple. It might not tie up every loose end, but its force is undeniable.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePortland Mercury\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Strange and beguiling…a mystery that operates on grounds simultaneously literary and existential…metaphysical and emphatically realistic…It’s a perfectly Kafkaesque vision, almost uncanny enough to be sublime.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRuth Franklin, Harper's Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Illuminating…[\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e] builds to a powerful emotional crescendo and an ending that feels revelatory. Haunting and reflective, poetic and wise, this is another masterful work from one of America’s best writers.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Entrancing and mysterious…Krauss reflects with singing emotion and sagacity on Jewish history; war; the ancient, plundered forests of the Middle East; and the paradoxes of being. A resounding look at the enigmas of the self and the persistence of the past.”   - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Krauss, as ever, writes beautifully about complex themes, and she has a keen eye for the way Israel’s culture, slower but more alert to violence, requires its American characters to reboot their perceptions…” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Wildly imaginative, darkly humorous and deeply personal, this novel seems to question the very nature of time and space. Krauss commands our attention, and serious readers will applaud.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e is epic, though in its own way: quiet, eerie, touchingly inchoate. It is an epic of loneliness, a testimony of and to longing that remains unfulfilled…Krauss has always been a writer interested in the hidden, spiritual dimension of things, and her work concerns itself with the mystical, the metaphysical, the mysterious… \u003cem\u003eForest Dark\u003c\/em\u003e is beautiful and complex but subtle and so closer to truth…It is elegant and shimmering, a slant of light shining long enough to make us wonder.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eYevgeniya Traps, The Millions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is as original and impressive a work of fiction as I have encountered in years; a welcome reminder of how a novel can be defiantly and brilliantly novel.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDouglas Kennedy, New Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Krauss’s elegant, provocative, and mesmerizing novel is her best yet. Rich in profound insights and emotional resonance...Vivid, intelligent, and often humorous, this novel is a fascinating tour de force.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review and boxed)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888844468453,"sku":"NP9780062430991","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062430991.jpg?v=1730229939","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/forest-dark-a-novel-isbn-9780062430991","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}