Elizabeth Graver's epic fifth novel, Kantika, spans countries and continents. The feisty Rebecca Baruch Levy (née Cohen) is born into a wealthy, elite family, but faces multiple challenges with courage and grit as she carves out a life of her own.
Graver (The End of the Point) begins her novel in 1907, during "the beautiful time" in Constantinople, when Rebecca is a child attending the local French Catholic school and playing with her best friend, Rahelika. This idyll, of course, does not last; when World War I breaks out, the nuns' school closes abruptly and Lika's family leaves for the U.S. Nearly a decade later, Rebecca's family is also forced to flee their home city (now named Istanbul) for Barcelona. Graver skillfully portrays the effects of cataclysmic change on a family, the ways some people embrace changes and challenges, and others shrink from them.
After years as a dressmaker in Barcelona and a first marriage that produces two sons but ends in widowhood, Rebecca embarks on an ocean voyage to Cuba, to marry Sam Levy, a man she has not yet met. When they arrive in New York City to begin their life together, Rebecca meets Sam's daughter, Luna. Motherless and severely disabled, but as stubborn as Rebecca herself, Luna will become Rebecca's nemesis, her constant companion and, eventually, something like her friend.
"The past feels heavy, the present thin," Rebecca muses after Lika's departure for the U.S. The phrase is a fitting description for Graver's novel, where the weight of the past and the ephemeral nature of the present tangle together to create a bewitching whole. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams