Between Gods

November 9, 2015
Pick, a bestselling Canadian poet and author, describes being caught between beliefs in this thoughtful memoir. After being raised in a Christian household, she discovers that her father's grandparents fled the Czech Republic at the beginning of WWII, escaping the imminent genocide of their Jewish relatives and friends. Her grandparents landed in Canada and began a new life as converted Christians. The long-kept secret sends Pick into a gut-wrenching search for some truth in a seemingly endless stream of secrets. As a married woman in her 30s, Pick, now suffering from depression, embarks on a personal search by reaching out to her local Jewish community. In her interactions and moments of discovery, she becomes inspired to write a novel (Far to Go), which borrows heavily from her family's story of persecution at the hands of the Third Reich. Now more determined than ever to reclaim her Jewish heritage, she begins her conversion to Judaism, at first underestimating the complexity involved in pursuing such a goal. Pick writes her memoir by combining her fight against deep depression with the tenacious sense of hope she maintains in recovering her true identity as a Jew. She finds that everything she ever believed, and all that she hopes to believe, can be found in family, truth, tradition, and God.

June 15, 2015
An award-winning Canadian writer's account of how learning a family secret led her to embark on a journey of spiritual transformation and religious conversion. Pick (Far to Go, 2010, etc.) grew up in a home where family members went to church "once or twice a month." But by the time she was 12 years old, she learned that her father, though a practicing Anglican, had been born to Jewish parents who had converted to Christianity after fleeing from Czechoslovakia during World War II. Later, she would also discover that other people in her father's family, such as his maternal grandparents, died in Auschwitz. By the time she entered her 20s, Pick began to suffer from crippling bouts of depression similar to those that her father's mother also endured. Her father called this tendency a result of inherited "bad blood," but the older the author got, the more convinced she became that her depression was really a mark of an "unresolved trauma of an ancestor passed down one generation, then another." When she reached her 30s, Pick began exploring her Jewish cultural roots, in part to help ease the existential anguish caused by her recurring depression. But the road to reclaiming the heritage her grandparents had denied was long and difficult. As she immersed herself in the Toronto Jewish community and contemplated conversion to Judaism, she found herself attracted to a Jewish man whom she nearly allowed to come between her and her long-term Christian partner (and later, husband). Pick found general acceptance within the community for who she was, but she was at odds with rabbis who held fast to Jewish laws-that, fortunately for Pick, changed-stipulating that both members of a couple convert to Judaism. Brave and honest, this book offers an intimate portrait of a woman seeking to heal from inherited family trauma and find the beginnings of peace within her own soul. A poignant and powerful memoir of family, religion, love, and healing.

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July 1, 2015

Novelist and poet Pick (The Sweet Edge) tackles nonfiction in her latest offering, a memoir about her struggle with depression, uncovering her family's secrets, and her conversion to Judaism. When her paternal grandparents emigrated from the Czech Republic to Canada at the start of World War II, they converted from Judaism to Christianity and ever after hid their religious roots. Pick chronicles how she unearthed this hidden knowledge and how that tied into her conversion process. While Pick adds a personal touch to the discussion of what happened to her father's family, the topics of Judaism and the long-lasting effects of World War II on Jewish families are not new to her--she grappled with similar themes in her 2011 novel Far To Go. Parts of the writing and research process for that novel are included here; interwoven with her wedding, the birth of her first child, and her husband's later decision to covert to Judaism. VERDICT Pick provides a moving description of her ongoing battle with mental illness and offers possible theories about the cause of her depression. These become evermore poignant as her pregnancy progresses and she simultaneously discovers the traumas of her ancestors. Readers interested in memoirs, Judaism, World War II history, or the Holocaust will certainly be captivated by Pick's engaging and, at times, heart-wrenching narrative.--Crystal Goldman, Univ. of California, San Diego Lib.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2015
Every family has its history, but what happens when you find that your family's is the opposite of what you thought? This is the dilemma Pick faces in Between Gods. Having grown up Christian, she discovers as an adult that her family is Jewish. Her paternal grandparents fled Europe at the beginning of WWII, settling in Canada with the same names but a new identity, going to church and buying Christmas trees to assimilate. Pick's startling discovery moves her to reconnect with the identity they left behind, and the book traces her steady, sometimes fraught, ultimately triumphant conversion to Judaism. Pick's lovely but unflinching narrative tackles relationships and depression, and many readers will identify with the struggle of loving your family while sometimes not understanding them at all. The book always comes back to the steady, quieting presence of Judaism, and readers are left with no doubts about what the faith means to Pick. It's an intimate portrait of one woman's journey to find the faith her grandparents buried with their past.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)