Eliot Sefrin – författare

It is 1943, and World War II rages on battlefields across the globe. But in America, another bloody, divisive battle rages as stepped-up wartime production lures legions of poor blacks from the rural South to defense jobs in the Northto a so-called promised land of opportunity. The wartime migration has a profound impact, transforming Americas cities into both arsenals for democracy and cauldrons of racial conflict.

Set against this conflicted backdrop, two men embark on separate journeys to begin a new chapter in their lives. Roosevelt Turner is a poor black migrant who flees the Jim Crow South to work in Pittsburghs bustling steel mills. Jacob Perlman is a Jewish physician forced to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. As each seeks to escape his harrowing past and rebuild his life in a country struggling to fulfill its own promise, their paths unwittingly cross during a violent racial conflict. In an instant, their destinies are reshaped forever.

As Roosevelt and Jacob are thrust into the crucible of the civil rights movement, they courageously join forces in an effort to crush a terrorist hate group and exorcise the ghosts from their pasts.

A pair of highly regarded New York City police officers - one male, one female, both white - accidentally kill an innocent Black teen in a poverty-stricken, minority neighborhood and face the consequences of an enraged community, a racially divided city, and their own emotional unraveling. This powerful and timely novel, based on a composite of real-life events, explores the sensitive and divisive issue of race relations in America within the context of a tragic police shooting that becomes a lightning rod for racial tension and the focus of a landmark civil rights case, while profoundly reshaping the lives of those most closely impacted by the incident. As the riveting drama unfolds amidst controversy, false charges, racial bias, and political maneuverings that threaten to overwhelm the facts of the case, both the officers and the family of the slain teen become immersed in intense inner crises as they struggle to come to terms with the tragedy. In the process, they come to experience the stereotypes, antipathy, and misunderstanding that often divide our communities - as well as the wisdom and emotions that can ultimately bind them and help them heal.