Excerpt from Odessa by Gabrielle Sher, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The small houses in the shtetl were made of dark wood and stone; slapdash and crooked, they had been patched with spare lumber and rocks each time they were damaged, all leaning slightly the wrong way like infected trees twisting and turning to find the sun. Frieda had already decided not to stop at home on her way into town, although she had to pass the house again on the way. But as it came up on her left something made her stop and look. She had always thought of her home like a face — two windows for eyes, the door a dark closed mouth — and it looked back at her with intention, as though it were trying to speak.

Frieda looked into the right window of her home and saw the profile of her daughter holding her son, Ephraim's head resting on Yetta's shoulder while she rocked him back and forth. Frieda could not hear but she saw Yetta's lips moving and knew she was either singing or telling him a story to put him to sleep for his nap. Frieda watched them move in silence and felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. Yetta looked like she could be Ephraim's mother. Yetta's curls fell down her back, her strong arms holding Ephraim though he was too old and heavy to be held like an infant.

Frieda thought of the stories she used to tell Yetta when she was a girl and wondered if Yetta told them to Ephraim now. She remembered Yetta's brown eyes looking up at her as she told her the story of Rahab, the whore who hid Jewish spies from the king of Jericho and hung a scarlet cord from her window to save her family. After that, Yetta had been obsessed with the color red, and when Frieda had been cleaning, she found a collection of small red objects underneath Yetta's pillow — a stone, a berry, a leaf, one of her own baby teeth still stained with blood.

Frieda watched as Yetta turned away from the window and walked into the shadows of the house carrying a sleeping Ephraim. Both windows were empty now. Both eyes closed and its mouth shut too — Frieda could not shake the image of a corpse with coins over its eyes and lips — she shook her head and walked on toward town, this time faster.

The air began to stink like fish, and it was how Frieda knew she was getting close to the market. She always joked to Miriam that she went every week to the fish market yet never saw the sea — only smelled it. Frieda wrinkled her nose. The stench was overwhelming. She turned the corner to the rush of the market. She had to choose carefully. There must be four of the fish she wanted to buy, or two. She counted on her fingers, tapping each one. Yetta, Ephraim, Mordechai, me. Four of us. If I buy three fish, something bad will happen to one of us. Two fish is all right, I have two children; but I can never buy just one, or something bad will happen to one of them ... the numbers flooded her mind and she forgot everything else.

Excerpted from Odessa by Gabrielle Sher. Copyright © 2026 by Gabrielle Sher. Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.