The History of Soul 2065

by Barbara Krasnoff, Jane Yolen (Introduction)

Overview

“This is storytelling at the top of the heap.”

—Jane Yolen, winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement

“Powerful and dreamlike, this intergenerational meditation on family, mortality, and hope is far more than the sum of its parts.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Achingly familiar and wonderfully strange.”

—Samuel R. Delany, Hugo and Nebula Award winner

“Plunge into The History of Soul 2065, there’s nothing like it.”

—Jeffrey Ford, World Fantasy Award winner

Months before World War I breaks out, two young Jewish girls just on the edge of adolescence—one from a bustling Russian city, the other from a German estate—meet in an eerie, magical forest glade. They are immediately drawn to one another and swear an oath to meet again. Though war and an ocean will separate the two for the rest of their lives, the promise that they made to each other continues through the intertwined lives of their descendants.

This epic tale of the supernatural follows their families from the turn of the 20th Century through the terrors of the Holocaust and ultimately to the wonders of a future they never could have imagined. The History of Soul 2065 encompasses accounts of sorcery, ghosts, time travel, virtual reality, alien contact, and elemental confrontations between good and evil. Understated and epic, cathartic and bittersweet, the twenty connected stories in Nebula Award finalist Barbara Krasnoff’s debut form a mosaic narrative even greater than its finely crafted parts.

Jane Yolen, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master, says in her introduction: “If you, like me, love quirky and original fantasy stories, I advise you to dive right in. If you, like me, admire tough writing that’s not afraid of the grit, dive right in. If you, like me, want to hang out a while with characters rich in their own traditions, dive right in. This is storytelling at the top of the heap.”

“Krasnoff’s multigenerational, phantasmagoric saga kept me turning the pages at a rapid pace.”

—James Morrow, World Fantasy Award winner

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781732644014
Publisher:	Mythic Delirium Books
Publication date:	06/11/2019
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Barbara Krasnoff was born and bred in Brooklyn, and has the accent to prove it. She has sold over 35 short stories to a variety of publications; "Sabbath Wine," which appeared in Clockwork Phoenix 5, was a finalist for the 2016 Nebula Award. When not producing weird fiction, she works as Reviews Editor for The Verge and investigates what animals and objects are really thinking in her Backstories series on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (#theirbackstories). You can find her at BrooklynWriter.com or on Twitter as @BarbK.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Can I Tell You: Introduction by Jane Yolen 11

Chana’s Family Tree 14

Sophia’s Family Tree 15

Part One: Beginnings

The Clearing in the Autumn: A story of Chana Rivka Krasulka and Sophia Stein 19

Part Two: The Book of Chana’s Family

Sabbath Wine: A story of Abe Hirsch, Chana’s husband-to-be 33

Lost Connections: A story of Marilyn Feldman, Chana’s granddaughter 51

Hearts and Minds: Abe’s story continues 56

Cancer God: A story of Jakie Feldman, Chana’s son-in-law 62

In the Loop: A story of Morris Feldman, Chana’s grandson 71

The Ladder-Back Chair: A story of Joan Feldman, Chana’s granddaughter-in-law 77

The Sad Old Lady: A story of Sheila Hirsch, Chana’s daughter-in-law 86

The Red Dybbuk: Marilyn’s story continues 95



Part Three: The Book of Sophia’s Family

Waiting for Jakie: A story of Gretl Held Weissbaum, Sophia’s daughter-in-law 107

The Gingerbread House: A story of Isabeau Weissbaum Stein, Sophia’s daughter 114

Time and the Parakeet: A story of Eileen Stein Bowman, Sophia’s granddaughter 119

Under the Bay Court Tree: A story of Carlos Acosta, Sophia’s grandson-in-law 128

An Awfully Big Adventure: A story of Benjamin Weissbaum, Sophia’s grandson 143

Rosemary, That’s For Remembrance: A story of Lydia Jacobson, Isabeau’s housemate 159

Stoop Ladies: A story of Julie Jacobson, Lydia’s daughter 162

Escape Route: Julie’s story continues 170

Sophia’s Legacy: A story of Rachel Bowman, Sophia’s great-granddaughter 178

Part Four: Completing the Circle

The Clearing in the Spring: A story of Chana and Sophia’s great-granddaughters 189

The History of Soul 2065: Annie and Rachel’s story continues 198

Editorial Reviews

“In story after story, the author reminds us that while we are all the main characters in our own stories, we are also characters in the stories of others, and that we are always influenced by those who have gone before just as we will influence those who will come after . . . Krasnoff reconfirms the book’s central thesis that the past and future, the living and the dead, are inextricably intertwined—that even the brief presence of someone in our lives can alter our course and sometimes alter the course of the world.”

—Strange Horizons

“If David Mitchell plotted a speculative novel-in-stories that then Alice Munro wrote, you might get something approaching the ambition and beauty of Krasnoff’s The History of Soul 2065. Krasnoff creates a world so excessively alive, both with woe and human kindness, that history can’t contain them.”

—Carlos Hernandez, author of Sal and Gabi Break the Universe

“Barbara Krasnoff’s great gift is for manifesting the invisible: immigrants and outcasts, the queer, the bereaved, elderly, children, ghosts. And, ah! The ghosts! The ghosts in The History of Soul 2065 arrive from both the past and the future to interact, and interfere, with each other and the living. Timelines tangle, bloodlines mingle, the mundane becomes magical.”

—C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award–winning author of Bone Swans: Stories

“Reading The History of Soul 2065 is like looking through a photo album – and when you touch someone’s photo, you get pulled into what they were going through at the moment the photo was taken . . . The History of Soul 2065 is so many things. It’s a journey through the histories and dreams of two families, it’s a magical realism way of finding hope when you feel lost, it’s historical fantasy, it’s far future science fiction.”

—Little Red Reviewer

From the Publisher