Dara Horn - In the Image

IN THE IMAGE
Reviews
(Click link for full review, where available)

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award (2003)
Winner of the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction (2003)
Winner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award (2002)

	"Horn mesmerizingly blends religious and family history with her protagonist's coming-of-age story ... The novel almost begs to be read twice ... A stunning and absorbing first novel." San Francisco Chronicle Book Review (Best Books of 2002)
	"The Lovely Bones offers a voice of bittersweet reassurance about the immortality of our loved ones. Is there room, at this moment, for another intensely spiritual novel that opens with the murder of a teenage girl? If not, make room. In the Image, by Dara Horn, is a work of raw genius ... Book clubs done with The Lovely Bones would do well to consider this exuberant novel about the tenacity and mystery of faith. ... [T]his is a book to press into other people's hands and pester them to finish so you can talk about it together." Christian Science Monitor (Top 5 Novels of 2002)
	"Richly imagined ... Leora never loses her tourist's eye, and her slightly skewed point of view gives In the Image both its poignancy and its wonderfully deadpan humor ... [An] intricate web of miracles, coincidences and accidents of fate." The New York Times Book Review
	"In this beautiful first novel, twenty-five-year-old Dara Horn meets you like a torch-bearer in the dark entryway of a mysterious castle, and you follow her into a fascinating labyrinth without looking back ... In the Image is not merely a striking success as a whole but a technical tour de force [that] has a strange, compelling, romantic fascination." Commentary Magazine
	"Powerful ... In prose that flows like water, Horn tells [a] spiritual odyssey and coming of age story ... with a sure hand and a keen eye for historic detail. A lively compelling read, In the Image not only underscores Jewish identity in America, but more universally, gives suffering meaning and, in the end, hope." The Seattle Times
	"[An] unsettling, otherworldly novel." The Boston Globe
	"Impressive ... Remarkable ... All of the characters struggle for those gemlike qualities of passion, brilliance, clarity, fire ... [Their] worlds intersect in lovely, sometimes heartbreaking ways, as the characters struggle with their memories, their dreams ... Horn weaves complex and unforgettable images with strands of sacred text ... Memory and identity are at the core of this beautifully written novel, which demands -- and rewards -- the reader's close attention." The New Orleans Times-Picayune
	"A stunning example of how to thread the warp of Jewish history into the woof of contemporary American Jewish life. A riveting tale, one that explores a Jewish past as skillfully as it measures the Jewish present. In the Image unfolds (and then folds together) its interlocked stories in an accessible way. With this work Dara Horn joins an already impressive gallery of young American Jewish writers." Hadassah Magazine
	"In this exceptional first novel, Horn deploys rare imaginative gifts to probe the most complex of spiritual themes. Poignant and profound, a novel that invites careful re-reading." *Booklist ( Starred Review)**
	"The most innovative Jewish novel in a year dominated by Jewish debutante novelists ... Just as there is a city beneath a city in Horn's novel, there are ideas beneath ideas." The Forward
	"An ebullient and vibrant new voice." The Jewish Week
	"An enchanting, introspective and emotionally charged debut." *Publishers Weekly ( Starred Review)**
	"In the Image brilliantly combines a renewed interest in Jewish ideas with the old-as-the-hills requirements of good fiction: compelling themes, absorbing plots, characters we care about, and good writing." Reform Judaism Magazine (2003 Significant Jewish Book and UAHC Prize Winner)
	"[A] fascinating first novel by Dara Horn ... incredibly poignant ... with audacious appropriation of lines and themes from Jewish texts ... It takes a writer with great self-confidence to pull off this sort of work ... [Horn] is a true talent and one of the more promising young American Jewish novelists of the new century." Jerusalem Post
	"An ambitious and absorbing first novel, In the Image delves into themes of rootedness and exile, good and evil, free will and fate, estrangement from and return to Judaism, and the power of memory, history, and love." Jewish Woman Magazine