The Gates of November

“REMARKABLE . . . A WONDERFUL STORY.”
–The Boston Globe

The father is a high-ranking Communist officer, a Jew who survived Stalin’s purges. The son is a “refusenik,” who risked his life and happiness to protest everything his father held dear. Now, Chaim Potok, beloved author of the award-winning novels The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev, unfolds the gripping true story of a father, a son, and a conflict that spans Soviet history. Drawing on taped interviews and his harrowing visits to Russia, Potok traces the public and privates lives of the Slepak Their passions and ideologies, their struggles to reconcile their identities as Russians and as Jews, their willingness to fight–and die–for diametrically opposed political beliefs.

“[A] vivid account . . . [Potok] brings a novelist’s passion and eye for detail to a gripping story that possesses many of the elements of fiction–except that it’s all too true.”
–San Francisco Chronicle