The Wholeness of a Broken Heart

Narrated through the voices of four generations of Jewish women, The Wholeness of a Broken Heart recounts the story of a young woman’s troubled relationship with her mother.

Growing up in Cleveland in the 1960s and 1970s, Hannah Felber basks in her mother’s devotion to her, and for Celia, her daughter is her redemption from an unhappy childhood. But when Hannah goes off to college to begin a life of her own, her mother inexplicably shuts her out, refusing to answer her letters or phone calls.” “With her mother’s abrupt abandonment, Hannah loses not only her closest confidante, but also her sense of identity – she searches through old photographs and listens to family legends for clues to who she is and where she comes from. Drawn deeper and deeper into her family’s past, she begins to see that the fate of her grandparents and those left in the old country has a direct bearing on her own life.

In chapters narrated by Hannah’s maternal ancestors, we hear the voices and stories of those beyond, we hear the voices and stories of those beyond the grave.