Nancy Kricorian

Poetic and assured, Dreams of Bread and Fire is a beautifully etched tale of romance, idealism, and the quest for self-identity by a writer praised for her “admirable economy and grace” (The Baltimore Sun). Ani Silver is a young American woman whose half-Jewish, half-Armenian heritage seems a mere footnote to her own identity. But when the dark shadows of history insinuate themselves into her otherwise peaceful life, she is propelled into a profound and passionate series of journeys—a quest for a long-dead father, a search for the clues of a nearly forgotten genocide, and a love threatened by a quietly gathering storm of murder and retribution. Ani is desperately in love with a New England boy with a trust fund as big as his appetites, and the farthest thing possible from the Old World accents and superstitions that filled the childhood home she shared with her widowed mother and Armenian grandparents. After college, Ani leaves for a year in Paris, taking along her boyfriend’s pledge of fidelity and the promise of their future together. When she receives a letter from him ending their relationship, she falls into a series of romantic misadventures. It is not long before Ani reconnects with a childhood friend, an elusive and intriguing character whose preoccupation with the Armenian heritage they share provides Ani with a new connection to her identity—even as she begins to suspect that he has a secret, and dangerous, identity himself. Both funny and heartbreaking, clear through to its bold and exquisite conclusion, Dreams of Bread and Fire is an irresistible novel of passion, ideals, and the temptations—and dangers—of trying to outrun our origins.

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