Book Club – Kantika

Join us at 6:00 PM at Scotch Plains Tavern in Essex for an evening of thoughtful conversation and community as our Book Club discusses Kantika by Elizabeth Graver.

A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance and family as home.

A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantia – “song” in Ladino – follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way – a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge – her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old.

Please RSVP by August 7th so we can provide an attendance count to the restaurant.