num_pages: 288
description: Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace PrizeFinalist for the Vermont Book AwardA powerfully moving novel about the intertwined lives of a Vermont monk a Somali refugee and an Afghan war veteran by the author of the acclaimed memoir Goat SongAs a late spring blizzard brews Brother Christopher a cloistered monk at Blue Mountain Monastery in Vermont rushes to tend to his Ida Red and Northern Spy apple trees in advance of the unseasonal snowstorm. When the storm lands a young Somali refugee Sahro Abdi Muse at the monastery Christopher is pulled back into the world as his life intersects with Sahros and that of an Afghan war veteran in surprising and revealing ways.North traces the epic journey of Sahro from her home in Somalia to South America along the migrant route through Central America and Mexico to New York City and finally her dangerous attempt to continue north to safety in Canada. It also compellingly traces the inner journeys of Brother Christopher questioning his future in a world where the monastery way of life is waning and of veteran Teddy Fletcher seeking a way to make peace with his past.Written in Brad Kesslers sharp beautiful and observant prose and grounded in the authors own corner of Vermont where there is a Carthusian monastery a vibrant community of Somali asylum seekers and a hole left after a disproportionate number of Vermont soldiers were killed in Afghanistan North gives voice to these invisible communities delivering a story of human connection in a time of displacement.
language: English
title: North
publisher: Harry N. Abrams