In the Image

Starred review from August 26, 2002
In an enchanting, introspective and emotionally charged debut, Horn travels back and forth through time and space offering snapshots of the intertwining lives of Vienna native William Landsmann and his late granddaughter's best friend, Leora. Following the hit-and-run accident that killed his granddaughter Naomi in the suburbs of New Jersey, the depressed Landsmann tries to forge a friendship with high school student Leora by showing her slides from his travels, image after endless image. As Leora matures and slowly heals from the loss, she meets and falls in love with Jason, a college jock who has his heart set on caring for the elderly until he undergoes a religious transformation. Things end badly with Jason, but a few years later, Leora meets introspective Jake, at a lecture on Spinoza in Amsterdam. Jake, to Leora's fascination, "could have been born in any era, in any place in the world, and would probably have turned out more or less the same." Tossed into the mix are flashbacks from Landsmann's childhood and stories of his grandmother Leah, who flings her father's tefillin into New York Harbor at the tragic end of a love affair. Horn examines the religious and secular choices of each character, questioning the true nature of Judaism and of faith in general without being preachy or overly judgmental. An occasional stiffness in the narration is overcome by the warmth of her appreciation of Jewish culture and heritage, and she makes eloquent use of recurring motifs—modeling clay, photographs, miniature dollhouses and deep sea diving among them—as she captures life in early 20th-century Europe and contemporary New York. Agent, Gary Morris.(Sept.)Forecast:Horn's first claim to fame was an article she wrote for
Hadassah at the age of 15, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award. The core readership of her novel may well include some of her original readers—she is making appearances at Jewish book fairs as well as embarking on a seven-city author tour.

May 15, 2002
Horn's plot can't be summed up easily, but she takes readers on a spiritual journey, blending deep scholarship with a story of love and renewal that the publicist declares "the most astonishing debut I've ever read."

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2002
In this exceptional first novel, Horn deploys rare imaginative gifts to probe the most complex of spiritual themes. The deftly drawn protagonist, Leora, recoils from the trauma of losing a high-school friend by severing all emotional ties, so contracting her engagement with the world to that of a detached onlooker, an indifferent tourist. But then a very different tourist--the grandfather of her deceased friend--seeks Leora out to share with her the slide images he has collected in his global exploration of Judaism. These strange and unsettling images launch Leora on a personal journey of discovery in which she slowly recovers the power to connect with the world--through love and through faith. Penetrating and enriching the multilayered narrative of this search is a series of reflections on the elusive and often deceptive links between imagery (in doll-house play and drug-induced visions; in museum painting and Hollywood cinema) and reality. Encountering at every turn the constraints and the promises of her Jewish heritage, Leora finally begins to glimpse the primal Maker (and Destroyer) of all images, the God who created all humankind in a divine image inexhaustibly beautiful, unpredictable, and heartbreaking. Poignant and profound, a novel that invites careful re-reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)