The World to Come

by Dara Horn

Overview

"Nothing short of amazing." —Entertainment Weekly

A million-dollar Chagall is stolen from a museum during a singles' cocktail hour. The unlikely thief, former child prodigy Benjamin Ziskind, is convinced that the painting once hung in his parents' living room. This work of art opens a door through which we discover his family's startling history—from an orphanage in Soviet Russia where Chagall taught to suburban New Jersey and the jungles of Vietnam.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393066876
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/25/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	322
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Dara Horn is the author of five novels and was one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. She has taught Jewish literature at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence College, and Yeshiva University. She lives in New Jersey with her family.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

""A deeply satisfying literary mystery and a funny-sad meditation on how the past haunts the present—-and how we haunt the future." —-Time

Editorial Reviews

… the book succeeds, in part because Horn gracefully plays off certain words and images, using them as touchstones and leitmotifs: the title phrase and the Chagall painting; the recurring references to wombs, caves, bridges and the dents that angels supposedly leave beneath our noses. Little connections leap the narrative gaps and draw story lines together. Throughout this rich, complex and haunting novel, Horn reminds us that our world poses constant threats to the artist and to art, to the individual and the creative spirit. Their very survival is a miracle: in a sense, every one of us is that bearded man flying, unaware, over Vitebsk.
— The New York Times

Susann Cokal

Horn writes about theology and moral imperatives and the afterlife -- as though she didn't realize that such things just aren't done in sophisticated literary prose. But that daring is endearing, especially when it flows from deeply sympathetic characters, an encyclopedic grasp of 20th-century history and a spiritual sense that sees through the conventional barriers between this life and the one to come -- or the one before.
— The Washington Post

Ron Charles

A heist with a twist, Horn's engaging second novel (after In the Image, 2003) explores the history behind a stolen painting as well as the saga of the family that owned it for nearly a century. Recognizing it from his childhood living room, Benjamin Ziskind, a socially awkward quizmaster, lifts a million-dollar Chagall during a museum cocktail hour. We quickly learn that the master painter once taught art to Ben's grandfather in a bleak Russian orphanage in the 1920s. The piece, a sketch for the famed Over Vitebsk, was a gift from the artist to his young pupil. Of additional intrigue to the museum and eventually to Ben are a series of stories written by a legendary Yiddish author (and Chagall's onetime neighbor) that are hidden in the painting's frame. As Ben is pursued-not by the police, oddly enough, but by Erica Frank, a museum staff member-Horn shuttles readers through three generations of the Ziskind family, loosely following the painting as it changes hands, crosses an ocean and withstands enormous turmoil. The family history, and Ben's own covert investigation of the painting's place within it, uncovers questions of authenticity on multiple levels and leaves him (along with his twin sister and accomplice Sara) with a heavy moral decision to make. Despite the vast oscillations in time and place, the story is remarkably coherent, and it is only in the last 50 pages that Horn runs out of gas. The romance that buds between Ben and Erica is trite and seems tacked on to the otherwise finely crafted tale. And the author's reliance on symbolism and doubles, which is subtly effective throughout, becomes unwieldy. After an appealing journey into the past, Horn should have left her readers inthe present-rather, her final chapter is a confusing and corny look into "the world to come."An engrossing adventure, in spite of its flaws. Fans of art and Judaic studies will particularly enjoy this well-researched work.

Kirkus Reviews

Nothing short of amazing.”

Entertainment Weekly

A deeply satisfying literary mystery and a funny-sad meditation on how the past haunts the present—and how we haunt the future.”

Time

Spellbinding…A compelling collage of history, mystery, theology, and scripture, The World to Come is a narrative tour de force crackling with conundrums and dark truths.”

Booklist (starred review)

An accomplished work that beautifully explains how families—in all their maddening, smothering, supportive glory—create us.”

Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Symphonic and piercingly beautiful…the novel suspends us between emotions, never allowing any to become predominant, and we hang there in that indeterminate space, perfectly happy, hoping that the book will never end."

Newsday - Bethany Scneider

"Deeply sympathetic characters, an encyclopedic grasp of 20th-century history and a spiritual sense that sees through the conventional barriers between this life and the one to come—or the one before."

Washington Post - Ron Charles

"A deeply satisfying literary mystery and a funny-sad meditation on how the past haunts the present—and how we haunt the future."

Time - Lev Grossman

"Brilliantly imagined."

Wall Street Journal - Merle Rubin

"This book is the real thing."

Chicago Tribune - Julia Livshin

"Horn’s deft touch is often wryly funny—but never maliciously so…An accomplished work that beautifully explains how families—in all their maddening, smothering, supportive glory—create us."

Los Angeles Times Book Review - Natalie Danford

""A deeply satisfying literary mystery and a funny-sad meditation on how the past haunts the present---and how we haunt the future." ---Time

From the Publisher