Here I Am

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer A monumental new novel
from the bestselling author of Everything Is Illuminated
and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the book of
Genesis when God calls out Abraham! before ordering him to
sacrifice his son Isaac Abraham responds Here I am. Later
when Isaac calls out My father! before asking him why
there is no animal to slaughter Abraham responds Here I
am. How do we fulfill our conflicting duties as father
husband and son; wife and mother; child and adult? Jew and
American? How can we claim our own identities when our
lives are linked so closely to others? These are the
questions at the heart of Jonathan Safran Foers first
novel in eleven years – a work of extraordinary scope and
heartbreaking intimacy. Unfolding over four tumultuous
weeks in present-day Washington D.C. Here I Am is the
story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis. As
Jacob and Julia Bloch and their three sons are forced to
confront the distances between the lives they think they
want and the lives they are living a catastrophic
earthquake sets in motion a quickly escalating conflict in
the Middle East. At stake is the meaning of home – and the
fundamental question of how much aliveness one can bear.
Showcasing the same high-energy inventiveness hilarious
irreverence and emotional urgency that readers loved in
his earlier work Here I Am is Foers most searching
hard-hitting and grandly entertaining novel yet. It not
only confirms Foers stature as a dazzling literary talent
but reveals a novelist who has fully come into his own as
one of our most important writers.