When cruelty is sanctified, betrayal is rewarded as virtue, and the innocent must hide their true identities to survive, seventeen-year-old Isaaque Zarco struggles to preserve the principles he lives by and protect the people he loves in this luminous and deeply moving conclusion to The Vanished Souls duology. As Isaaque attempts to put his life back together, mysteries and conflicts continue to haunt him, most prominently his father's inexplicable rejection and the knowledge that his survival depends on concealing his identity and faith. His world is shaken by a letter saying his grandmother, Flor, has been arrested. Unable to abandon the woman who guided him throughout his childhood, Isaaque crosses into Spain, entering a society ruled by fear and deception, where anonymous accusations carry the force of law and compassion itself has become an act of defiance. Flor has been transferred to a prison in Madrid. She has been physically broken by imprisonment. Isaaque learns that, under torture, she revealed the names of two of his oldest friends as secret Jews. Racing back to his home village, he embarks on a desperate attempt to help them escape before the Inquisition comes for them. The Upside-Down Forest portrays a society in which slander is revered as truth, mercy is condemned as weakness, and persecution masquerades as justice. Giving voice to victims whose suffering has too often been erased from history, Richard Zimler explores how systems of fear corrupt not only institutions but also the bonds between family, friends, and neighbors. Ultimately, it asks what remains of our humanity when the moral order itself has been turned upside down—and whether a life shaped by love, loyalty, and compassion can still endure when survival itself demands treachery and betrayal.
