The Holy Land

LoveReading Says

A tale of the pain of conflict woven across decades and through the tale of a lost ballet. In 1939 Janek leaves Warsaw with his two daughters for a job as a musical accompanist at a fledgling ballet company in Italy. Though the company is supported by a mysterious patron that’s powerful enough to employ Jews despite Mussolini’s race wars, the journey there and life in Italy is not always as welcoming. While at the company he composes the music for a ballet called The Holy Land, which is never performed and lost to time. Years later, some of Janek’s manuscripts are discovered and the reader goes on a journey to search for the lost manuscripts and bring them to life. The central thread of the entire narrative is ballet. Whether it’s Janek’s work, the search for the music years later or the life of a widow, whose husband crafted ballet shoes. However it is merely a touchpoint, like the small area of contact a dancer has with the ground while en pointe, it is a basis for a more complex narrative to grow out from. Throughout The Holy Land conflict is a key theme, we see Janek’s life as a Jew during the World War Two period, and how dangerous his life becomes. We see the toll of conflict on an Israeli soldier left destroyed by guilt over his actions and a grieving Palestinian man trying to guide his granddaughter. Built within this conflict is a sense of otherness, the ostracism of the Jews in Nazi occupied Europe, the dehumanisation of the Palestinians by the IDF, the treatment of Mary, a representative of the Windrush generation by the British Government. Through it all, Janek’s work provides an opportunity to bring people together, a chance for all backgrounds to come together and witness beauty. To me The Holy Land is an ode to that beauty, the timeless artistry and the connection that it can bring. An intriguing book for readers who enjoy multifaceted and multi-narrative, history spanning novels.

Charlotte Walker, A LoveReading Ambassador

LoveReading Ambassador

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