Light Fell

This novel of a gay father’s reunion with his estranged sons “raises brave questions about the nature of family and betrayal, rupture and healing” (San Francisco Chronicle).

A Winner of the Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Edmund White Award

Twenty years have passed since Joseph left behind his entire life—his wife Rebecca, his five sons, his father, and the religious Israeli farming community where he grew up—when he fell in love with a man, the genius rabbi Yoel Rosenzweig. Their affair is long over, but its echoes continue to reverberate through the lives of Joseph, Rebecca, and their sons in ways that none of them could have predicted.

Now, for his fiftieth birthday, Joseph is preparing to have his five sons and the daughter-in-law he has never met spend the Sabbath with him in the Tel Aviv penthouse that he shares with a man—who is conveniently out of town that weekend. This will be the first time Joseph and all his sons will be together in nearly two decades.

The boys’ lives have taken widely varying paths. While some have become extremely religious, another is completely cosmopolitan and secular, and their feelings toward their father range from acceptance to bitter resentment. As they prepare for this reunion, Joseph, his sons, and even Rebecca, must confront what was, what is, and what could have been.

“A stirring exploration of obsession, spirituality and the healing power of time . . . Light Fell is an astonishingly accomplished first novel, wisely attuned to life’s infinitely strange turns.” —The Miami Herald