Fantastical and ambitious . . . infused with faith in the power of storytelling . . . Light and tenderness persevere—in a shining moon, in a candle still aglow, in a mother’s embrace of her child.”—The New York Times Book Review
"An absorbing and unpredictable novel that manages to encompass a wide geographic and emotional range. . . . Ausubel's original voice combines fresh, clear observation and Old testament grandeur."—The New Yorker
“Debut novelist Ausubel casts a vibrant, dreamlike spell in this tale of a remote Romanian Village whose citizens try to save themselves from the Holocaust by reinventing their own history.”—Marie Claire
 
“Romanian Jews in 1939 reinvent their own reality in this inspiring novel about the power of community and imagination.”—O, the Oprah Magazine
 
“Ramona Ausubel’s debut, No One Is Here Except All of Us captures the magical group-think of a Romanian village that retreats into an imaginary reality at the outbreak of war.”—Vogue

"No One Is Here Except All of Us contains so many achingly beautiful passages, it's as if language itself is continually striving to be a refuge. . . . If a book can be said to have a consciousness, the consciousness here is infinitely tender and soulful, magical and true. It's the kind of God we wish for.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Ramona Ausubel's first novel, "No One Is Here Except All of Us," is a poetic fable about a part of history after which some people say poetry is an obscenity… Ausubel's fable-like tone is effective in creating a sensation of tale and dream. For conveying the full horror of the events surrounding the Holocaust, it is less so, but this isn't what she's trying to do. Instead, she is comfortable reshaping, in a safe time and place, stories that were handed to her, using her rhetorical and narrative skill to create something that can be carried without cutting the one who carries it.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“In her debut novel, No One Is Here Except All of Us, Ramona Ausubel breaks new ground, with a unique prose style that weaves a classic immigrant tale into a world of dreams. The town of Zalischick and its citizens re-write their own story, filling it with magic, hope, and a determination in the face of destruction to find new ways to begin.”—Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief
 
"Here is a world created out of the most curious and beautiful remnants of our own: opera, suitcases, letters, rivers, daughters, strangers and shovels. Ramona Ausubel cracks open the very idea of a book and fills its shell with a thing glimmering, thrilling and new.”—Samantha Hunt, author on The Invention of Everything Else

“A special work of the imagination, an original gift, dark and light, and Ramona Ausubel colors it all with a glowing wisdom.”—Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies

“Beautifully written and alive in story, fascinating characters, and place.  You can't help but compare Ausubel's book with Marquez, with her fantastic vision of history and invention, the small village dreaming the vast world, but she is her own new fresh voice.”—Brad Watson, author of The Heaven of Mercury

“A wise, compassionate book that even in its darkest turns uplifts.”—Christine Schutt, author of Florida and All Souls

When danger threatens, would that we could simply change reality's rules. That's what one little Romanian village tries to do in 1939, as war thunders on the horizon. At the suggestion of an 11-year-old girl and a stranger who's washed into their midst, the townsfolk decide that they can hold danger at bay by using their imagination; they completely remake their lives by throwing out everything they once knew, reassigning jobs and even spouses, and forgetting history altogether. It works for a while, but eventually our heroine grows up and must leave the village's parameters to save her husband and children. A wonderfully fresh and inventive premise replicating exactly what literature can do, and award-winning debut author Ausubel reputedly writes with warmth and flare. I'm excited about this one.

Ausubel's first novel presents the haunting story of a small group of Romanian Jews who attempt to redefine reality as the horrors of war encroach upon their remote village. Laural Merlington's performance as she transitions from a child's whispery breathlessness to the more confident tones of a mature wife, mother, and survivor helps the listener follow the main character, Lena, as she and her community defiantly celebrate life amid unspeakable tragedies. Merlington enhances Ausubel's deft character development by employing an equally subtle touch to vocally define personalities. She skillfully allows the author's lyrical prose to deliver all necessary drama and emotion. Listeners who embrace this unconventional story will be treated to a unique experience that lingers long after the work ends. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

A bittersweet fable of war and survival set in a Romanian shtetl. Like Chagall's art, charming or cloying depending on taste, Ausubel's fanciful novel employs an intensely imaginative style both to evoke Zalischik, a remote Jewish settlement in 1939, and also to fuel her story. As news of the encroaching anti-Semitic terrors filters into the village via the horrific experience of a half-drowned stranger, the community tries to hold the world at bay with its imagination while cutting itself off from external contact. The narrator, 11-year-old Lena, must endure a parallel delusion. Given by her loving parents to her barren aunt and uncle, she is pushed rapidly through the stages of childhood again as her partly-deranged new parents teach her to talk and walk, then arrange marriage to Igor, the banker's son. Happiness and children follow, but the village's isolation can't last. After Igor is taken prisoner, Lena flees into the woods where her baby dies and farmers offer her an impossible choice. Returning to Zalischik where she learns the fate of her people, she finally turns to a future in the New World. Ausubel's sustained, idiosyncratic take on the Holocaust is double-edged, alternating affecting heartache with sentimental poetic overkill. Opinion may be divided, but there's an undeniable element of talent here.