Torday, Daniel

Two-time National Jewish Book Award winner Torday (The Last Flight of Poxl West) creates a fascinating if sometimes challenging story that highlights the plight of Jewish people in Turkey and the United States, both past and present. It incorporates Hebrew terms and Jewish history and teachings that are not always fully explained for uninitiated audiences, but fiction readers with some background in Jewish history and messianic teachings will enjoy.

Torday's novel is smart and culturally attuned, but its satirical edge suffers from a split narrative that leaves its protagonist too often a spectator to the movement he created. For fans of Nathan Hill's The Nix and Tony Tulathimutte's Private Citizens. [See Prepub Alert, 3/26/18.]

Torday (director of creative writing, Bryn Mawr Coll.) is a polished writer who creates an unforgettable character for whom the term flight describes his whole life. Poxl's inability to reconcile his love for people with their less-than-heroic behaviors, in the end, leaves him completely alone. This portrait of a Holocaust survivor's experiences is innovative, and its page-turning plot will keep readers on the edge until the very end. [See Prepub Alert, 9/29/14.]