If small-town reporter Polly Stern has to cover one more manure runoff
story, she's going to lose her already unmindful mind. Polly thought
she'd end up as a serious photojournalist, traveling the world, meeting
important people, and documenting significant environmental and social
events. Life didn't turn out as expected. With her career at a
standstill, her marriage over, her nest empty, her spiritual foundation
precarious, and her family keeping a vital secret from her, Polly is
desperate for answers. And change. She sets out on an unintended
journey, stumbling upon story after story that for some
reason--coincidence, fate?--all occurred in 1937. Polly's path leads her
to: a troubled teen on a stone bridge high in the Green Mountains of
Vermont, a political refugee on a kosher farm carved out of the
Dominican Republic jungle, a tribal chief near a remote hut in uncharted
Papua New Guinea, a volunteer soldier in a foggy olive grove in Spain,
an artistic Italian savant in a tenement on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan, and to a Tibetan boy and his snow-white mastiff as they begin
their trek across the Himalayas. As the lines blur between reality and
fantasy, between truth and fiction, between present and past, Polly
writes about these inspiring characters, and others, in nine short
stories--all set in 1937--embedded throughout the novel. Her compelling
international literary voyage reveals clues that allow Polly to uncover
the truth about her own history, opening a new path for understanding,
forgiveness, and love.
