Fic­tion

Jacob’s Return

  • From the Publisher
April 27, 2012
Jacob Gold­man is a deeply con­flict­ed man. Hav­ing dis­missed his own Jew­ish her­itage as lack­lus­ter and irrel­e­vant, Jacob’s route to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty has been cob­bled togeth­er through his affin­i­ty with the nat­ur­al world, and through his mar­riage to Sheila, a full-blood­ed Native Amer­i­can with deep alliances to her tribe and her cul­ture.

A jour­nal­ist who was once renowned for his ardent cham­pi­oning of envi­ron­men­tal caus­es and his strug­gle for social jus­tice, the fail­ure of Jacob’s writ­ing to effect any real change, or to save what he loves the most has final­ly shat­tered his ide­al­ism.

When tragedy dev­as­tates his fam­i­ly while on vaca­tion in Hawaii, Jacob’s world shat­ters and he is forced to exam­ine who he has become, as well as the shaky foun­da­tion of his faith, all through the lens of loss. This search for iden­ti­ty and mean­ing takes Jacob from his native San Fran­cis­co to the Salt Grass Reser­va­tion, and then back to Hawaii in an attempt to con­front it in its wild and dan­ger­ous beau­ty, and to find redemp­tion.

His is a hero­ic jour­ney in which he must sur­ren­der his fierce­ly held beliefs in order to rec­on­cile nature and tra­di­tion, and that which threat­ens them.

Discussion Questions