From this prolific poet, author, and labor movement activist, a headily bittersweet love story set among the young Jewish literati of World War I–era New York City.
One fateful winter night, Miriam Eidelberg finds herself strolling across the Williamsburg Bridge with her literary hero, the man whose poems she knows by heart. Nyezhiner, a star of the Yiddish artistic clique Di yunge-"the young ones"-is beguiled by the wistful girl at his side. But Miriam is married with a young daughter, while Nyezhiner, who is ten years her senior, has a wife, five children, and a womanizing reputation. Can these lovers find in each other the fulfillment they yearn for-and at what cost?
An indelible portrait of a fascinating milieu and a timeless inquiry into desire, freedom, and the wrenching compromises life demands, Hand in Hand shows an author at the height of her powers as a poet of the human heart.
