As I've written about a few times over the past few years, I started writing a new novel in 2020, in part because of the pandemic. Being geographically closest to my grandmother, who I call Oma, I started to call her every week to check in during the early months of the COVID “lockdown” to see how she was doing in her house down near the Jersey Shore. Thankfully she remained healthy, but the situation kept unearthing memories of her childhood in Holland at the end of World War 2.
She told me stories: some new and others I'd heard before, but suddenly I understood them all in a way I never had before the pandemic. Stories about a world turned upside down, of being unsure how to get food and other basic necessities, and of being surrounded by death and governmental dysfunction.
Oma survived all this at the age of 8, even when it meant helping to hide her father and the other men in her apartment building in the attic. I took a lot of strength from those stories, and it helped get me through those weeks of panic.
Three years later, I finished a novel inspired by those stories, and thanks to the wonderful folks at Ecco Books, and my editor Helen Atsma, that novel will be out next summer, on August 13th, 2024.
Those true stories have now flowed together with my own fictions, lots of historical research, and some weird stuff about eels, to form a wonderful novel I'm very proud of.
I'm sure I'll have a lot more to share about the book in the coming months, but for now I wanted to thank you all for your support and kindness by revealing the beautiful cover to OUR NARROW HIDING PLACES here for the very first time.
Only 259 days to wait! But you can pre-order today on Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and of course at your local bookstore!
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Half way in on an early read and loving this book. Not surprised that he has woven this from the experiences of his grandmother.
Congratulations Professor!