Secret Anniversaries of the Heart

“The power of Raphael’s stories comes from his passion for telling the truth, however painful.”—Hadassah Magazine

“His characters are voices of reason, observers rather than judges. The prose is poetic, the sex scenes sweat with passion.”—Los Angeles Times

When Lev Raphael published the controversial story collection Dancing on Tisha B’av, he broke new ground in the publishing world. Never before in one book had an American writer dealt with the conflicts between homosexuality and traditional Judaism, linked the chilling mind diseases of antisemitism and homophobia, and borne witness not only to the legacy of Holocaust survivors but the suffering and conflicts of their children. Winner of the prestigious Lambda Literary Award, Raphael opened the door to a new kind of American Jewish fiction.

Secret Anniversaries of the Heart unites the best stories from Dancing on Tisha B’av with 12 new stories, including one never before published. Here we encounter tales of antisemitism on the college campus, of self-hatred and body obsession, and of survivor parents whose only response to the Holocaust is to isolate themselves, unconsciously committing a kind of emotional suicide.

In a collection that encompasses over 25 years of his award-winning stories, Lev Raphael proves himself a visionary like James Baldwin and shares Anita Brookner’s gift for dramatizing the pain of seemingly quiet lives in stories that are both passionate and precise.

Lev Raphael is the author of 17 books published in a dozen languages. A winner of the Lambda Literary Award, among many prizes, his short works have appeared in numerous anthologies, including the star-packed Who We Are: On Being (and Not Being) A Jewish American Writer (Schocken/Random House). The author of a popular mystery series, he performs all over the country and hosts a weekly book show on NPR.