Blood­lines, an apartheid era nov­el, rais­es uni­ver­sal ques­tions about the bond between moth­er and child, regard­less of dis­tance or age, and the lim­its of tol­er­ance and for­give­ness. Inspired by the author’s child­hood in South Africa, the har­row­ing nar­ra­tive expos­es read­ers to a part of his­to­ry large­ly over­looked — that the van­guard of the white South African anti-apartheid move­ment was heav­i­ly Jew­ish. Many of the most vis­i­ble play­ers were sec­ond gen­er­a­tion East­ern Euro­pean Jews. Michaela David­son Green, the coura­geous, defi­ant and con­found­ing female pro­tag­o­nist of Blood­lines, comes from such a back­ground. Believed dead by her estranged son Steven, who only learns the truth at age 48 from across the Atlantic, Michaela risks her life not only for the cause of jus­tice and equal­i­ty for all South Africans, but also for the love of one black man. Fol­low­ing her prin­ci­ples and her pas­sion, Michaela suf­fers ter­ri­ble con­se­quences and faces ago­niz­ing choic­es, espe­cial­ly the deci­sion to stay in South Africa, as a fugi­tive, and for­feit her rela­tion­ship with her son.