(Fiction, 288 p. 2024)
Best friends from childhood in rural Georgia, Ruby and Max care deeply for one another. The inescapable cultural realities separating a Black daughter of sharecroppers and white Jewish son of store owners, however, become insurmountable in adolescence. Ruby runs away to Atlanta without leaving word with her family or Max. Circumstances eventually place her in Leo Frank’s match factory. Years later, Max winds up as a stringer to Atlanta’s top newspaper covering the real life trial in which Frank, a Jew, is accused of raping and murdering his employee Mary Phagan, a white Southern girl. Racism and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin, devaluing and destroying everything but Ruby’s and Max’s enduring love.
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions from the Jewish Community Library
Discussion Question with Extensive Internet Resources from the Jewish Community Library
Articles and Reviews
Review by Bernie Bellan, Jewish Post and News, n.d.
Review by Jinny Webber, California Review of Books, November 2024
Review by Adina Bernstein, Jewish Book Council, December 30, 2024
Review by Leah Tyler, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 5, 2024
Review by Rabbi Rachel Esserman, The Reporter, November 14, 2024
Review by Erika Harlitz Kern, Foreword Reviews, July/August 2024
Article by Brian T. Hyland, EIN Presswire, July 1, 2024
Interviews and Author Appearances
Interview (video) with Mary Glickman, Joy on Paper, July 9, 2024
