The Days Before Tomorrow

In this moving, coming-of-age novel set in the heart of Eastern Europe during the years between the World Wars, a random act of violence by local anti-Semitic thugs casts Wolchi, a trusting and superstitious teenage boy, and Leja, his bookish but independent older sister, on a life-changing journey through a world gone mad.

The story unfolds over 15 years in the small towns of Western Ukraine, the urban sophistication of 1930s Krakow, and a wartime Soviet Union. A flawed, but loving Jewish family struggles with daily indignities — and its own betrayals and secrets — until WW II begins and they are shattered. To survive, Wolchi goes to work in a Russian war factory, and Leja joins partisans fighting the Nazis. When they return home at war’s end, hardened and pragmatic, the evil that murdered their family members was still walking the streets. That’s when they knew: Vengeance was the key to their future.

The Days Before Tomorrow is also firmly connected to contemporary events. In the wake of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, the book's exploration of the current war’s underlying political and historical themes through the eyes and voices of highly relatable historical characters is especially relevant. And its examination of the way anti-Semitism was knitted into everyday European life prior to the Holocaust is sobering in light of the rise of new anti-Jewish rhetoric around the world.