Brooklyn BookBeat: New novel depicts family coping with tragedy
Joshua Henkin, the Brooklyn-based author of “Swimming Across the Hudson” and “Matrimony,” will soon release his latest novel, “The World Without You” – a poignant story about love, loss, and the aftermath of a family tragedy. Henkin will appear at BookCourt on Wednesday, April 10, for a book launch party, reading, and signing.
Set on July 4, 2005, “The World Without You” portrays the Frankels, who are descending upon their beloved summer home in the Berkshires. But this is no ordinary holiday: the family has gathered to memorialize Leo, the youngest of the four Frankel siblings, an intrepid journalist and adventurer who was killed on that day in 2004, while on assignment in Iraq. His parents, Marilyn and David, are adrift in grief, and it’s tearing apart their forty-year marriage. Clarissa, the eldest, is struggling at thirty-nine with infertility. Lily, a fiery-tempered lawyer, is angry at everyone. Noelle, a born-again Orthodox Jew (and the last person to see Leo alive), has come in from Israel with her husband and four children and feels entirely out of place. And Thisbe–Leo’s widow and mother of their three-year-old son–has arrived from California bearing her own secret. Over the course of three days, the Frankels will contend with sibling rivalries and marital feuds, volatile women and silent men, and, ultimately, with the true meaning of family.
The April 10 event will begin at 7 p.m. BookCourt is located at 163 Court St. in Cobble Hill.
