Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Readalikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2006, 320 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2006, 320 pages
With astonishing grace and simplicity, Dara Horn interweaves a real art heist, history, biography, theology, and Yiddish literature. Richly satisfying, utterly unique, her novel opens the door to "the world to come"—not life after death, but the world we create through our actions right now.
A million-dollar painting by Marc Chagall is stolen from a museum. The unlikely
thief is Benjamin Ziskind, a thirty-year-old quiz-show writer. As Benjamin and
his twin sister try to evade the police, they find themselves recalling their
dead parents—the father who lost a leg in Vietnam, the mother who created
children's books—and their stories about trust, loss, and betrayal.
What is true, what is fake, what does it mean? Eighty years before the theft,
these questions haunted Chagall and the enigmatic Yiddish fabulist Der Nister
("The Hidden One"), teachers at a school for Jewish orphans. Both the painting
and the questions will travel through time to shape the Ziskinds' futures.
With astonishing grace and simplicity, Dara Horn interweaves a real art heist,
history, biography, theology, and Yiddish literature. Richly satisfying, utterly
unique, her novel opens the door to "the world to come"—not life after death,
but the world we create through our actions right now.
There used to be many families like the Ziskinds, families where
each person always knew that his life was more than his alone. Families like
that still exist, but because there are so few of them, they have become
insular, isolated, their sentiment that the family is the center of the universe
broadened to imply that nothing outside the family is worth anything. If you are
from one of these families, you believe this, and you always will.
Lately it had begun to seem to Benjamin Ziskind that the entire
world was dead, that he was a citizen of a necropolis. While his parents were
living, Ben had thought about them only when it made sense to think about them,
when he was talking to them, or talking about them, or planning something
involving them. But now they were always here, reminding him of their presence
at every moment. He saw them in the streets, always from behind, or turning a
corner, his father sitting in the bright yellow taxi next to his, shifting in
...
Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment
Like a spider weaving her web -- miraculously -- Dara Horn weaves the poignant stories of lives past, lives present, and lives to come in this splendid tale of storytelling itself. A terrific yarn peopled with tender and very human characters, a page-turning mystery of the best sort: not who done it, but why. Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of Strange Fire and A Faker's Dozen
Some excellent books are smart and serious; others are sweet and joyous. Amazingly, Dara Horn's The World to Come is all of the above. Ms. Horn hits every note in the literary register from historical tragedy to mystical delirium, and plays them like a master. Steve Stern, author of The Angel of Forgetfulness
I can't even count the ways I admire The World to Come -- everything about
the book intoxicated me. It is quite simply an astonishing achievement, and Dara
Horn is the realist of real things. I suspect it'll be a long while before I
again read a book as true as The World to Come.Dara Horn was
inspired to write The World
To Come following an actual
theft of a Marc Chagall painting
from a museum in New York that
took place during a singles'
cocktail hour.
More about this.
The painting that Benjamin
Ziskind steals from the museum,
Study for "Over Vitebsk",
is, I assume, fictitious.
However
Over Vitebsk itself does
exist, and can be seen in the
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in
New York. Vitebsk was the town
in which Chagall was born and
...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
More books by Dara Horn
If you liked The World To Come, try these:
36 Arguments for the Existence of God
by Rebecca Goldstein
Published 2011
A hilarious, heartbreaking, and intellectually captivating novel about the rapture and torments of religious experience in all its variety.
by Geraldine Brooks
Published 2009
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war.
The Lost English Girl
by Julia Kelly
A story of love, betrayal, and motherhood set against the backdrop of World War II and the early 1960s.
The God of Endings
by Jacqueline Holland
A suspenseful debut that weaves a story of love, history and myth through the eyes of one immortal woman.
Harvard is the storehouse of knowledge because the freshmen bring so much in and the graduates take so little out.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
