MEMORIES FROM CHERRY HARVEST

A multigenerational family epic tackling the physics of memory and the survival of trauma.

“When I remember Russia, I ache with longing for the village of my birth, where the beloved grandparents magically produced candy in a handshake and told stories of long ago when God spoke to humans and enchantments filled the world.” So begins Amy Wachspress’s historical novel, spanning seventy years and five continents. Two Jewish sisters, born in Russia shortly before the Communist Revolution, are forced to flee the pogroms and persecution and travel with their parents to British-occupied Palestine. The girls’ parents befriend a widower with two children and join forces, creating a blended family. Circumstances tear the family apart when the girls are teenagers, sending one to France and one to America. Their lives unfold in tandem, through war, through babies born, friendships forged, and cherry pies baked. The family grows into the next generation with daughters drawn to lifestyles their ancestors could never have imagined. One granddaughter turns her passion to providing aid to Salvadoran refugees fleeing the torture and death squads in their homeland, just as her own grandmother once fled the pogroms of Russia. As she follows her vocation of reversing the damage that torturers inflict on their victims, she must overcome a past-life trauma that haunts her very core. Memories from Cherry Harvest explores the physics of memory, and shows how the tenacity of good can ultimately withstand and overcome the memory of tragedy. Amy Wachspress wrote an award-winning children’s fantasy adventure The Call to Shakabaz. There were no foreign sales. Memories from Cherry Harvest is her first novel and the winner of the Fabri Prize. Editing was done by Anika Streitfeld, noted editor who received a manuscript from unknown writer Audrey Niffenegger and went on to publish The Time Traveler’s Wife, making it a huge bestseller for MacAdam/Cage and then Ballantine.