Please join me on Sunday, October 12, from 10 am to noon at the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, 10349 W. Pico Blvd., for a book reading and signing of Invisible Threads, a novel about family, identity, and healing.

What kinds of threads make up the fabric of a family? What are the stories we tell ourselves about them? And how do they intertwine with the time and place of our birth, the trials and triumphs of our ancestors, the vicissitudes of our larger human family? Was Leo Tolstoy’s narrator of Anna Karenina right? Are happy families really all alike? And what is a happy family, anyway?

Most families are a complex weave of bloodlines, fault lines, ancient and recent history, shared values and beliefs, secret grudges and betrayals, unspoken longings, guilt and envy, dashed and realized dreams.

My new novel Invisible Threads explores these themes and more. The story first emerged twenty-five years ago, when I was recovering from breast cancer treatment, and it reflects the larger questions that arose within me during that time. In writing what came to feel like my most personal work of fiction, I found myself drawing extensively on my own history, on the generational suffering and resilience of my Jewish lineage, on how the complex weave of cruelty and kindness in the human spirit has marked and shaped me—and how the dichotomy between dark and light continues to live inside us all to this day.

I’ll be speaking about the origins of the novel and will look forward to chatting with you about the ways in which the fate of our personal families interweaves with the wounds and healing of our world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free, but please R.S.V.P. to bookstore@junginla.org to make sure we provide enough seating.

I’m very much looking forward to meeting you there!