Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Rescuer’s Path-Paula Friedman

The Rescuer’s Path


Paula Friedman

Plain View Press, Jan 2012, $15.95

www.PlainViewPress.net

ISBN: 9781935514886



In 1971 in Washington DC, seventeen years old Jewish Malca Bernovski rides Dragon in an off-trail in Rock Creek Park. The teenager finds Arab-American antiwar protestor Gavin Hareen severely injured from a bullet wound. She uses the first aid kit she has with her to treat his injury and leaves him her jacket. She returns every day to help him recover although the new proclaims Gavin as the prime suspect in a lethal bombing. They fall in love and flee together. However, as she is carrying his baby, the Feds catch up to them and kill him. Grieving Malca gives her baby up for adoption.



In 2001, Malca Bernovski-Cohn is married to kind Jeff; they have two teenage sons (Jason and Mason). However, she never forgot her first love as she believes his ghost is with her any time she enters “Other-where.” One day a woman who lives in Berkley calls her. She introduces herself as Julie and wants to meet her biological mother. Both are excited and frightened as each need to let go of what happened three decades ago to the mother’s lover and the daughter’s father.



The rescuer’s path is a wonderful epic extended family drama. The key to the tale is the cast especially Malca who is the link between the various years (including some after 2001 and between 1971 and 2001). Although the skipping back and forth in time can be a bit confusing, readers who relish complicated relationships will appreciate this profound epic.



Harriet Klausner

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