Jen­nifer Haupt went to Rwan­da for a month in 2006 to inter­view geno­cide sur­vivors, and explore the con­nec­tions between for­give­ness and grief. She was deeply moved, as a Jew whose rel­a­tives had been mur­dered at Dachau and as woman with unre­solved grief over the loss of her sis­ter. Haupt, a jour­nal­ist, came home to Seat­tle with some­thing unex­pect­ed: the bones of a novel.