"Required reading for anyone who wants to confront the abortion issue today It humanizes an issue which has been denatured too long by adversarial irrelevancies. . . . Powerful and runs deep, as only a good novel can."—The New York Times Book Review
"An astonishing, an important book. . . . To be honored for its compass, its daring, its large human drama, its questioning."—Tillie Olsen
"At the Center is an uncommon excitement, a narrative of pure deliciousness of character and speeding event and brilliantly fashioned moments. It elates. It will last and last."—Cynthia Ozick
Description
This is not a simple story. At the heart is Hannah, who confronts bitter knowledge of the God who delivered her parents from Auschwitz to brutal death in America. It is about men and women who fall in love, become obsessed with each other’s needs, and in doing so commit unwitting cruelties, all the while clinging to their visions of renewal. To the question society so frantically asks: What shall we do about our unwanted offspring? Norma Rosen’s novel replies with an even more urgent one: What shall we do about ourselves?
About the Author
Norma Rosen is the author of critical works, short stories, and several novels, among them John and Anzia: An American Romance, and Accidents of Influence: Writing as a Woman and a Jew in America. She has taught fiction-writing seminars widely, including at Yale, The New School, and New York University, and has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for fiction.
December 1996