RIVER

Fourteen-year-old Emily, a Jewish American girl, is pushed through time to meet her ancestors in their youth.

In the prologue, the married adult Emily travels to Australia to visit her sickly grandmother, who mentions the summer years ago “when we were both fourteen.” From Chapter 1, Emily narrates the strange events of that summer: how a family trip got cut short by her mother’s cancer diagnosis and treatment and she and her 5-year-old brother, Billy, were sent to Australia to stay with their grandmother. During a midnight storm, Emily was transported back in time: first to her mother’s childhood in Australia, where she met the grandfather she never knew, then to her grandmother’s childhood in South Africa, the Lithuania of her great-grandmother, and, finally, ancient Babylon. In each region and era, Emily finds herself able to speak the language and pretend to be a local despite her need to ask questions whose answers she should know. She traces a history of anti-Semitism and varying injustices against Indigenous peoples while also reciting cultural and historical facts for readers’ edification. While the story’s concept is intriguing, its execution is lacking. The characters feel like place holders serving the plot, which itself lacks direction and momentum. Indigenous and black characters appear to explain or demonstrate their peoples’ plights to white main characters in strange, inauthentic ways.

With more skillful writing and editing, this could have been an engrossing tale.