Incandescent Threads

Richard Zimler was born in New York in 1956 and now resides in Porto, Portugal. His twelve novels have been translated into twenty-three languages and have appeared on bestseller lists in twelve different countries, including the United States, the UK, Australia, Brazil, Italy and Portugal. Five of his works have been nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award, the richest prize in the English-speaking world, and he has won several other accolades for his fiction across Europe and North America. The Incandescent Threads is the latest in his Sephardic Cycle, an acclaimed group of independent works that explore the lives of different branches and generations of a Portuguese-Jewish family, the Zarcos.

Author is a multiple prize winner and nominee who has previously sold over 935,000 copies of his books worldwide. All of these books were Number 1 bestsellers in Portugal.‘AN ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE.’ – Açoriano Oriental‘Deep [and] moving [with] an enormous emotional charge.’ – Time Out‘Six magnificent narratives that are tied together by absolutely wonderful characters.’ – Diário de Notícias'Benni and Shelly Zarco, cousins who carry their guilt for having survived the Holocaust, are unforgettable characters (and) Zimler invests them with an extraordinary emotional depth.' - Jornal de Notícias'A beautifully intricate and interwoven novel about how to go on living after the Holocaust – and most poignantly, about how to cope with the guilt of having survived. Zimler writes poetically throughout, and his extremely compelling narrative also serves to alert readers to current threats.' - O PúblicoMaybe none of us is ever aware of our true significance.Benjamin Zarco and his cousin Shelly are the only two members of their family to survive the Holocaust. In the decades since, each man has learned, in his own unique way, to carry the burden of having outlived all the others, while ever wondering why he was spared.Saved by a kindly piano teacher who hid him as a child, Benni suppresses the past entirely and becomes obsessed with studying kabbalah in search of the ‘Incandescent Threads’ – nearly invisible fibres that he believes link everything in the universe acrossspace and time. But his mystical beliefs are tested when the birth of his son brings the ghosts of the past to his doorstep.Meanwhile, Shelly – devastatingly handsome, charming and exuberantly bisexual – comes to believe that pleasures of the flesh are his only escape, and takes every opportunity to indulge his desires. That is, until he begins a relationship with a profoundly traumatised Canadian soldier and artist who helped to liberate Bergen- Belsen – and might just be connected to one of the cousins’ departed kin.Across six non-linear mosaic pieces, we move from a Poland decimated by World War II to modern-day New York and Boston, hearing friends and relatives of Benni and Shelly tell of the deep influence of the beloved cousins on their lives. For within these intimate testimonies may lie the key to why they were saved and the unique bond that unitesthem.