Eternal Life
Rachel has an unusual problem: she can’t die. Her recent troubles – widowhood, a failing business, an unemployed middle-aged son – are only the latest. She has already put up with scores of marriages and hundreds of children, over 2,000 years – ever since she made a spiritual bargain to save the life of her first son back in Roman-occupied Jerusalem. There’s only one person in the world who understands: a man she once loved passionately, who has been stalking her for centuries, convinced that they belong together forever. In 2018, as her children and grandchildren develop new technologies for immortality, Rachel knows she must enable her beloved offspring to live fully – without her, but with meaning – by finding a way for herself to die. Gripping, hilarious, and profoundly moving, Eternal Life celebrates the bonds between generations, the power of faith, the purpose of death, and the reasons for being alive.
Dara Horn
Dara Horn was born in New Jersey in 1977 and received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University in 2006, studying Hebrew and Yiddish. In 2007 she was chosen by Granta magazine as one of 20 “Best Young American Novelists.” She's the author of , In the Image, The World to Come, All Other Nights, The Rescuer, A Guide for the Perplexed. She has taught courses in Jewish literature and Israeli history at Sarah Lawrence College and City University of New York, and currently holds the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard, where she teaches Yiddish and Hebrew literature. She has lectured at over two hundred universities and cultural institutions throughout North America, in Israel and in Australia. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.