Judith Frank opens her second novel,
All I Love and Know
(William Morrow, $26.99), with the gravest of tragedies. When a Tel Aviv bombing kills Daniel's twin brother and sister-in-law, he and his partner, Matthew, must navigate their mixed-faith relationship and anti-occupation politics as well as a surprise inheritance of two young children.
Frank's deftly balanced tale of grief and redemption simultaneously asks how the American-Jewish left might negotiate religion and identity in the face of Israeli violence toward Palestinians, and how gay parents might raise children in a country still suspicious of them. Frank wraps these big themes around an intimate, fraught family setting; after the funeral in Israel, Daniel and Matthew return to their New England home, a 6-year-old and a baby in tow, and they're forever changed. After reading this book, one of the best of the season, you may be, too.
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